Moriarty Finds Himself Trapped By Stone's WORLD TRADE CENTER!!

Oliver Stone’s WORLD TRADE CENTER is handsomely produced, and it’s obviously the work of a master craftsman working with the very best technical support that money can buy. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena do solid work in the leads of the film, and Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal both invest a lot of honest, painful emotion into their roles as well. Craig Armstrong’s score is the very model of tasteful emotional restraint. The rest of the supporting cast all makes the most of their time onscreen.

And honestly... it all just washed right over me and was gone as soon as the credits rolled.

Earlier this year, I was fairly knocked out by UNITED 93, and the more time I’ve had to reflect on it, the more I like that film. I think it manages to avoid all the pitfalls that come from trying to make dramatic material from the freshest wound that we as Americans share. With WORLD TRADE CENTER, Oliver Stone’s made the most conventional film of his career, a bit of feature-length career rehab that works in large part. It’s not a bad film, but neither is it the sort of film I’ll ever revisit. It’s very sincere and well-intentioned, but it’s also everything I was afraid of seeing when Hollywood finally got around to tackling 9/11. We’re about a month out from the fifth anniversary at this point, and despite “Too soon!” having become a recurring joke in our talkbacks, there are people who genuinely still feel that way. They don’t want to be challenged. They don’t want to be confronted about the politics behind that day. They don’t want to sit in a theater and feel bad about the events of 9/11. And I don’t blame them. So if you want a movie that will allow you to feel as good as you possibly can about that day, a film that exists completely outside even the most far-reaching conspiracy theories, then WORLD TRADE CENTER is the safest bet there is. The fact that this is an Oliver Stone movie is perhaps the only surprising thing about it.

Andrea Berloff’s script is pretty much the beginning, middle, and end of what’s wrong with the film. Admittedly, she’s bound by reality in terms of what she could or couldn’t write, since she chose to use real-life characters. John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno were the 18th and 19th people (out of 20) rescued from the rubble after the towers of the Trade Center fell. The film is the story of how they got trapped, and then how they got rescued. Knowing that walking in, which is sort of unavoidable since the real McLoughlin and Jimeno have been on the publicity trailer promoting the movie, there’s not a lot in the way of dramatic tension in the movie. I think the best stuff is probably the first forty minutes or so, as Stone gradually brings us into the horror and chaos of the day. The way he shows the city waking up, the way he gradually adds layer after layer of sound, it’s incredibly skilled filmmaking. Even so, it’s the filmmaking I found myself responding to rather than any particular insight offered by the script. We never really learn much of anything besides the barest of details. McLoughlin has a number of kids. Jimeno’s wife is pregnant. And even by the end of the film, there’s really nothing else added to our ideas about who they are. I don’t deny that there is a strong emotional pull generated by much of the family material as Stone cuts back to Allison Jimeno (Gyllenhaal) or Donna McLoughlin (Bello) over the course of the long day as the two policemen lie buried in tons of rubble. You’d have to be fairly hard-hearted not to feel something during those sequences. But more often than not, it feels exploitative, like Berloff’s trading on the easy sympathy generated by our natural feelings about family. And I guess that's what the headline of this review refers to... that feeling of being cornered into feeling something. Berloff doesn't seem to trust the audience to have a reaction, so she continually ladels on some ham-handed details to try and pump up our sympathies. In particular, there are two characters that feel like blatant manipulations, one played by Frank Whaley and the other played by Michael Shannon. They may well be based on real people, but what comes out of their mouths is plastic and only serves to distance me further from the material. I hate feeling someone push me toward an emotional response without earning it, and that's what this film is guiltiest of.

There’s one thing I think really works thematically about the film, one idea that Stone realy nails visually. When faced with something as overwhelming as the horror of the collapse of the towers, when faced with death in the volume of that day, sometimes doing only one good thing is enough. There are scenes near the end of the film, as the men are finally brought back to the surface, when you get a look at the sheer number of people involved in saving these two people. I found those moments to be more compelling and genuinely emotional than anything involving the families, and maybe it’s because you see just how much energy it took to bring even one person through the experience alive. Whatever the reason, in a few brief images, Stone says more than the whole script does.

I’m sure for many people this will be a perfectly adequate emotional release, and in a way, I guess that’s the point. You can sit in the dark, squirt a few tears, and feel like you’ve done your duty in the absolute most middle-of-the-road Hollywood tradition, but anyone looking for the fire that has marked the best work of Oliver Stone may walk away puzzled more than anything else. As a longtime fan of his, I’ve just got to chalk this one up as proof that he can make anything compelling through sheer technique, but it’s hardly the Oliver Stone that’s kept me interested for all these years.

It&#39;s kinda funny though. Critics love to use puns to title thier reviews, and here&#39;s a movie with a thousand of them, that they just can&#39;t use. "World Trade Center crashes and burns". "World Trade Center buckles under the pressure".

paging Zfisk, Brokeback and Ginger Twit- 9/11 review awaiting your input. On topic with this film, Hasn&#39;t Oliver Stone been on a kind of dud streak- Alexander was awful and I amstruggling to remember what he made before that.

...there has to be a question of life and death every time in order for there to be "dramatic tension". Been writing one too many horror scripts there, cuz. Funny, you knew the ending to UNITED 93, and you didn&#39;t seem to mind. So the lesson is...you don&#39;t like it unless the main characters die? I saw WTC at a preview showing, and it was amazing. Genuinely frightening, too. WTC is *a* story of 9/11, not THE story. There are many to tell, and this one is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise horrible event.

The only conspiracies that happened on 9/11 were AFTER the towers fell, in the guise of politicians trying to protect their asses and avoid blame for the worst security lapse, well, ever. Read this month&#39;s VANITY FAIR for just how incompetently the Air Force reacted that day, and then how the Pentagon tried to cover that up.

At a time when Pirates of the Caribbean 2 makes $300 million at the b.o. you have to hand it to Ollie for still making films like Alexander. Like it or not you have to hand it to him, the film itself was insane.

why do you feel a need to flaggelate America every time you post on one of these WTC boards. C&#39;mon mate, there is no need for this to be repeated ad nauseum. To paraphrase Kwisatzhaderach: I&#39;m English but still think you&#39;re a cunt.

Terrorism didn&#39;t exist untill 9/11. All that shit going on in the middle east or Ireland or whatever, was just that, shit. Who cares right? The only significant event of the last 300 years was is and always will be 9/11. I hope all you stupid little third world countries are listening to this. We are your masters. We may not come rolling into your capitol in our big fucking tanks like we did in Iraq, but we own your pathetic little asses economically. In the words of our great furhe-, er, leader, George Bush, &#39;Your either with us or against us&#39;. We ARE the only country in the world that matters, so suck it, BITCHES! Support our military heroes in Iraq. God bless the USA! Freedom aint free. These colors never run. &#39;Bush Cheney in 2008, third times the charm!&#39;

Here is a direct jayjew quote from Massawyrm&#39;s Ant Bully TB: "I&#39;m just trying to point out that a) america needed to get fucked in the ass, hard aka 911, b) lebs are fucking human filth and need to be blown away asap. That is all." -- I&#39;m just pointing out that you are a ridiculous, callous, ignorant troll who should be banned. Sorry dude, but you&#39;re a cocksucker.

This is my take on it- correct me if I am wrong. 9/11 was significant (an understatement- but I can&#39;t off hand think of a better description) for 2 reasons. 1) The scale- this is the single most devastating attack. Ever. It showed exactly how an attack on this scale could be done, and the potential damage involved. 2) The fact that it was on the USA, especially on the mainland and pushed it into action. There are numerous other countries that have been on the end of terrorist attacks for decades- (Britain pre Good Friday and Blair&#39;s despicable capitulation, Israel)- and could be said to be standing up to terrorists. The fact is that the USA is the sole world superpower and 9/11 was a direct attack on that superpower. So, in my mind, the real significance was that a terrorist body decided to provoke the most powerful nation in history with an attack on an unprecedented scale. I am not defending them or anything like that- as I think they are utterly appaling, and cunts like Jayjew and Nathan H that think it was self inflicted are vile beyond description, just offering an alternative view to the significance of the event. I hope that was not too incoherent.

Everything&#39;s political. By deliberately not playing politics with the movie (it&#39;s completely irrelevant to the story of those two men, anyway), Stone is taking the high ground. He (and those evil, evil liberals) come out smelling like a rose, while the right is stuck with Mel Gibson and George W. Bush. Oh, sweet, sweet justice.

On one hand he says its exploitative, and the script sucks (dialogue and script I find to be the most important part of any film). On the other hand he says the actual execution of some of the filming was great.... Personally, I hope this movie bombs... Stone and Cage can go stick their filthy hands in someone elses pockets. I wouldn&#39;t be impressed unless all the profits earned from this movie were given to benefit some worthy charity (except for expenses of course). This film should have been made pro bono.

On one hand he says its exploitative, and the script sucks (dialogue and script I find to be the most important part of any film). On the other hand he says the actual execution of some of the filming was great.... Personally, I hope this movie bombs... Stone and Cage can go stick their filthy hands in someone elses pockets. I wouldn&#39;t be impressed unless all the profits earned from this movie were given to benefit some worthy charity (except for expenses of course). This film should have been made pro bono.

It&#39;s exploitive, no matter who directed it. They know that audiences are going to see a movie entitled World Trade Center (which is why it was changed to that title) but they don&#39;t want to learn anything in the movie, it doesn&#39;t even need to be a good movie, it just needs to pull on a few heartstrings and &#39;promote&#39; the fifth anniversary. Bush is going to hammer home that we need to continue bombing the fuck out of people or else Israel, I mean Iraq, I mean...who was it that attacked us again? they&#39;ll be a threat to us (by &#39;threat&#39; it means a financial threat). Wasn&#39;t there a little conspiracy theory saying that a lot of Jews didn&#39;t turn up for work that day?

That&#39;s sarcasm just incase you didn&#39;t know. I&#39;m thinking more like all of the profits, except for expenses... and maybe have it so that nic cage, and oliver stone aren&#39;t making more money off this movie than all of the New york police, fire, and paramedics make in their entire lives.

they might be forgiven for doing this, but I doubt it will be overlooked that they&#39;ll have made a couple cool millions off the suffering of others.
GOD: So uhh Nic and Stone what did you do with the money you made off this film repeating the events and made only half a decade after 911 where thousands of people died? Did you act as idealistic philanthropists and donate most of your money to different charities?
Stone: Nah god ... we gave like 10% of the first five days or something, but the rest of the millions well I bought a new pool, a thousand eightballs of cocaine, a golden toilet, and Cage bought a Viper, an extension onto his mansion, and some jewellry...
(Meanwhile thousands of bodies that bore this horrible event rot away)

except for the idealistic philanthropist ones like Bono...... fuck i have the cash flowing like tom cruise, spielberg, bay, or stone I&#39;d be donating like crazy. There is no purpose for us on this earth except to help others in need. I learned that a long time ago. Exploitation, and making more than you deserve without charity.. (and by deserve i mean no one deserves millions of dollars, absolutely no one) are the roads to hell.

That was the review I was waiting to read, before deciding to sit this one out. The trailer said it all, but Harry&#39;s review was so compelling, I kind of got swept away in the hope that somerhing unexpected was in store. Thanks for putting the sense back in my head!

My son, who&#39;s 21, and I saw the trailer for this the other night. His immediate response was "if that movie makes even a nickel at the box office, I&#39;ll be disgusted" I don&#39;t care that Oliver Stone or Oliver North made this film...it&#39;s pointless. It&#39;s not entertaining, it&#39;s not educational, it&#39;s not enlightening. It is about making a freakin&#39; buck. Will America show up and plunk down their $10? Probably. Maybe some of the FIFTY PERCENT who think there WERE weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Not thought, but think this TODAY, right now. "Help me 8lb., 6oz. Baby Jesus!" We live in a land of thieves, idiots, buffoons, apes, and gibbons. Which ia apparently the list of check boxes for living in the White House. I hate the idea of this movie. If Stone had any, he&#39;d make a movie about the fucking over of America BY America for the sake of a oil buck. And how we had to plunge Iraq into a civil war, inflame much of the world against us, and ruin the globe just for shits and giggles. Instead of spending any money on this movie, use the money to buy a stamp and send a letter to Mr. Bush that says "yes, you are a fucktard"

Yes 9/11 was tragic, but the trailers are so over-the-top. how can anyone NOT see the true intent? Its a pathetic attempt to lure the masses into the theater. I can understand the producers want to make a quick buck, but the its done in such a blatantly disingenuous way. And I wonder just how much of the money will fill the coffers of Cage and Stone and how much goes to say the firefighters.

Jesus Christ! It&#39;s a FUCKING MOVIE! Yes, it&#39;ll make money and yes, people will be entertained by it- that&#39;s the point of movies, you whiney fucks. I haven&#39;t seen it, but judging from reviews more people will like it than won&#39;t. But that&#39;s not the point! There have been hundreds and hundreds of films made about real tragedy, real crime, real loss. It has always been thus. What about "Schindler&#39;s List"?? Was it a crime to make a movie about the worst crime against man ever? AND it&#39;s been FIVE YEARS! When are we allowed to move on and start viewing this as, what it is, HISTORY?? With a captal H! And so what, they make money! Are you applying this same standard to books on the subject? How many of those have sacrificed all their profits? Or even the documentaries? How about the TV movies like "Flight 93" that are shown with commercials? They get paid for those, dumbshits! What&#39;s the difference??? I&#39;m an American, proud, Liberal, and just as devastated as anyone when 9/11 happened, but it&#39;s time to pick ourselves up and stop being such cry babies. (If it was up to me, we&#39;d be almost finished with two towers that look exactly the same as the last two) If the movie was a COMEDY about 9/11, then I would understand all the fuss. But a tribute to the heroism of first-responders?? WTF??? This outrage is ridiculous - the arts have always reflected true events and always will.

...especially on Mori, whose mouth and head you&#39;ve decided to fill with notions you find easy to revile and argue with. None of what you read into his words is what I took from them, but then I&#39;m not the one constantly on the lookout for anything that might even be potentially misconstrued as anti-American propaganda. Is jayjew being kind of a prick? You bet. But simply entertaining the notion that there might be a whole helluva lot more to what went down that day than what we all think we know (for the record, I&#39;m personally leaning toward the "our government was and is just incompetent" option as opposed to the notion that it was somehow complicit in the attacks -- the longer Bush is in office, the less faith I have in his administration&#39;s ability to orchestrate a non-disruptive fart, much less a machiavellian plan to motivate U.S. aggression in the Middle East) or pointing out some of the hypocrisy America and Americans have demonstrated in the six years since the tragedy are hardly the basis for branding someone a despicable human being . You&#39;re looking for traitors and villains where, really, all you&#39;re likely to find are people waking up to the fact that their leaders aren&#39;t the great men or heroes they thought/hoped they were and they&#39;re expressing their disappointment, some more crassly than others. I&#39;ve read expressions of disappoint from you on various topics that would make me want to slap you silly if we were in the same room, but that doesn&#39;t mean I don&#39;t respect your right to hold an opinion. Your threats of physical violence against these people who hold different opinions from you are laughable, particularly given that you&#39;re making them from the safety and security of a comfortable seat behind a monitor and keyboard. So relax, tough guy. No one&#39;s afraid of you and the more you type like a thug, the less anyone&#39;s going to respect your opinions. And we all know how important other people&#39;s respect is to you.

that you&#39;re the father, Ninja Nerd. Me thinks you&#39;re the son. And don&#39;t waste your money sending a letter to the White House. I would imagine that sending a letter to the president titled, "To President Fucktard", might not make it into the priority mail folder for the Oval office.

Especially because I think the majority of it comes from the same kind of people who accept someone kicking the back of their seat for an hour and a half at the movies because they&#39;re too scared to turn around and say anything. And yet, in the talkbacks, suddenly they&#39;re Charles Bronson. It&#39;s like Westworld. You can act like a real badass with no fear of the consequences. Unless, of course, a talkbacker with the username Yul Brynner comes knocking at your door. Then, you got problems.

at the expense and exploitation of others (or as rebek calls it art imitating life)... You know I&#39;m sorry I feel sorry for the police officer who goes out every day and risks his life making 30 grand a year, while Stone is out on malibu drive snorting 8balls of cocaine in this lovely system we call capitalism... not saying I like communism (i hate it even more) but I do think people need to look a little more retrospectively into what they&#39;re doing with their lives, and whether they really deserve what they have, and what they need to do to make things better for other people.

Go read a film history book and tell me about some of the movies released post-1941. Acting like a movie can&#39;t be made about this event is ludicrous. As a New Yorker, I can understand the not wanting to see it sentiment, but I don&#39;t understand or respect the idea that art shouldn&#39;t be made about an event that affected our entire nation.

If half the world blew up and 50% of the Earth was left with most of the United States intact. We&#39;d make a movie about it in 3 years and add cheesy emo music to the trailer. Because we love to entertain ourselves? Bullshit. Anyone watching World Trade Center and eating Popcorn & Nachos should be ashamed of themselves. Go to youtube and search 9/11. Watch the real thing again. Not CGI effects. Remember what it was like. As far as I&#39;m concerned it happened yesterday. Time hasn&#39;t moved and that&#39;s how a lot of us who went through 9/11 first hand feel today. There&#39;s no excuse for making this film. Watch the documentary. Not Nick Cage ham up the screen with his God awful fake mustache.

I still can&#39;t wait to see this. I hope it&#39;s better than your review, but I think for me it&#39;s already nailed the right tone for a 9/11 movie. I didn&#39;t see U93, it just looked wrong all around to me. I could be wrong, and one day I&#39;ll rent it and see for myself. But if I&#39;m going to watch a 9/11 movie I want it to be uplifting and hopeful, not heavy. I have enough heavy emotions about that day without seeing a movie, but very few hopeful feelings about the state of the world right now.

You see, if people stop feeling traumatized by 9-11 and can go see a movie about it, they are unlikely to take 9-11 so seriously that they support spending billions (going into the pockets of the Defense industry, Haliburton, and Bush&#39;s buddies in the Oil Industry) and getting thousands of American soldiers killed and 4 times that horribly maimed but alive. See, people who don&#39;t mind going to see a movie about 9-11 5 years after it happened won&#39;t think that a war over 9-11 is worth it. And so the bullshit about "too soon" from the folks who want everyone to take it seriously and rip them off of their tax dollars.

It&#39;s only natural to react more strongly to something that hits closer to home. Are you trying to tell us you were affected as strongly by the slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda as you were by the deaths of office workers in New York?

To me, too soon means: not while we&#39;re still out kicking very questionable ass ostensibly in response. Just seems to be in bad taste to make these movies now; bad taste to go see them. Or, at least, in better taste not to go see them. If you can stand not to... I don&#39;t know about you, but all of these headlines about Israel and Lebanon really put me in the mood for a 2 hour movie about people buried in rubble.

i think you said it best. at first i had mixed fealing about this. but then i said why the fuck not. how soon is too soon. there is no scientific way to formulate that. if this is getting alot of critisism for just being made, then every movie about any real life tragedy should too.

Pearl Harbor was American soil. Like I said, go check out the film releases post-1941. It&#39;s clearly too soon for you, and that is a very defensible position. Others aren&#39;t going to share that position and you should respect that.

There were over 300,000 deaths in the Rwanda genocide. So that&#39;s less important because it&#39;s in Rwanda? Ten times the amount of innocent people were killed, with many Hutus murdering there own relatives. You say injustice is worse because it occurs in closer proximity despite it being a fraction as devastating? I disagree strongly. Especially since in Rwanda the atrocities were carried out by normal, previously innocent citizens, not trained terrorists. If you truly believe in human equality, injustice should be as effectual regardless of the geographical, biological or political distance.

you ignorant shit sniffing fuckstick, save your bullshit for people who give a fuck about your retarded pathetic my parents didn&#39;t love me bullshit. You&#39;re just a bitter, ass spelunking bucket of rancid monkey spunk. Feel free to go outside and play a game of hide and go fuck yourself.

I&#39;m not sure I want to communicate with anyone who clearly admits they&#39;re not interested in equality. I can&#39;t imagine what 9/11 was about for you, but I can just about hear the echoes of "bring it on". I&#39;m sure the office workers in the WTC would be right with you on that.

Actually, that&#39;s tongue in cheek. Just woke up on the wrong side of life today and honestly, the idea of the movie just irks the shit out of me. Yeah, it&#39;s about heroes in dire situations and all that. Well, I was a medic in VietNam when the life expectancy for us in forward areas was about 3 weeks. I&#39;ve got medals and citations and such...stuck in a box in the attic. My heroes were the guys driving the Hueys. I was doing my job. The guys in the movie? Doing their jobs. Make money on this movie? Smells bad, that&#39;s all. Oh, and I have sent more than one e-mail to Mr. Bush about a variety of subjects. The result? An IRS audit. I came out clean, but the hassle and stress wasn&#39;t any fun. The message was clear...we can fuck with you a ton more than you can fuck with us. The IRS people were actually NICE as I hadn&#39;t done a thing wrong in all my 40 years as a taxpayer; hell, I report poker winnings on a 1099G every year! Yes, I&#39;m a liberal, I suppose. I&#39;ve voted in every election since 1972 (absentee ballot as I was sorta busy dodging bullets) mostly Democrat. I actually list myself as Independent except during Presidential election years when I have to "be" a Democrat to vote in the primary election in my state. I don&#39;t think of myself as anything actually and think they should just have an affiliation that says &#39;citizen&#39;, but that&#39;s a whole other discussion involving history, the political process and Starship Troopers. LOL.

I think you shut us all up. At least this movie geek. And nice to know that a veteran like yourself is also a Democrat and that you&#39;re not buying Bush&#39;s bullshit. I disagree with you about their right to make WTC, but I definitely admire your citizenship.

The UN is a complete and utter JOKE. The IDEA is great...it looks good on paper...but it ultimately fails. When I was a kid, you learned about th UN in school. They showed us pix of the UN building and how all the nations of the world come here to solve problems etc. I thought it was something like the HALL OF JUSTICE on the Superfriends or something. In truth, It&#39;s populated by thugs and dictators (like Syria) who are allowed to sit on Security Councils and Human Rights chairs. It&#39;s useless and corrupt. Ever hear about THE OIL FOR FOOD SCANDAL? If you watch TV news you probably haven&#39;t! The UN is also the greatest gathering of anti-semetic thouht assembled in one place.

And after all these long months (has it been years yet? Time&#39;s funny in the talkback) of watching you do it, I can&#39;t help but think it&#39;s purposeful. My slap you silly comment was just that...silly. It was made to illustrate the point that, although I might impulsively be inclined to smack you if I knew you personally and heard you spout idiocy like you sometimes do (my friends and I regularly smack each other for saying stupid things, but it doesn&#39;t mean we want to actually hurt each other...it&#39;s more of a "come back to us" thing). But I don&#39;t go threatening folks with serious physical violence on an Internet talkback. That&#39;s asinine and makes you look asinine for doing it. As for defending jayjew&#39;s sentiments, I certainly did not. I defended his right to have them. You don&#39;t need an excuse to question my character any more than you did to try and lynch Mori in your first post. You&#39;re a witch hunter. You&#39;ve proven that in talkback after talkback. Deep down you&#39;re just as disillusioned as anyone, but you desperately want something to distract you from the realization that your unwavering faith might have been misplaced or, worse yet, gained under false pretenses. Good luck with all of that. Come type to me after you&#39;ve worked through all your personal shit and maybe we can have an interesting conversation (we&#39;ve actually come close before, but that other personality of yours always kicks in when it thinks it smells a weakness in someone else&#39;s viewpoint...it&#39;s like you can&#39;t control yourself or something...and you often make yourself souond quite the loon). Until then, at least refrain from making yourself look like one of those cyber-dick swinging tough guys who blusters onto a thread and dares people who disagree with him to e-mail him their home addresses or to meet him on the playground after school. That kind of nonsense is beneath even you, I hope.

If they want. People posting claiming it is disgusting people see it wake the fuck up it&#39;s their decision. Personally United 93 was enough for me, that was a great movie. But I&#39;m done for now with those type of films and I still need to see the Descent. Anyway if people want to see it that&#39;s their choice and it does not make them disgusting. Also I find it good that serious movies are coming out I think movies like this generate debate and allow people to talk about it. It feels like since 9/11 movies have become watered down a lot of really stupid comedies have come out making me believe Americans don&#39;t like dealing with serious issues and have to dumb ourselves down with movies like Nacho Libre and what not. So I don&#39;t plan on seeing WTC but it&#39;s not evil or anything that it actually came out.

I&#39;m a Liberal defending a Conservative, but in this case I think jumping all over anchorite&#39;s ass is a little misplaced. He asked in his first post if he was misreading Moriarty&#39;s review, and I have to say that I also think Moriarty sounded like he wanted a different kind of film entirely and that he didn&#39;t judge WTC on the merits of the film it WAS instead of what it WASN&#39;T and wasn&#39;t MEANT TO BE. There will be plenty of films about all the aspects of 9/11, including the controversial ones and (hopefully) the ones that show what an incompetent idiot George W is. This is a film about two men&#39;s bravery and miraculous survival - what&#39;s wrong with that? I get the feeling from a lot of reviewers on AICN, who are of the same political stripe as me, that they don&#39;t want to give a good review to something so traditional and "uplifting". Yecch, right? That&#39;s how Moriarty sounded, like he wanted Stone to find some bullshit conspiracy or angry take on the events of the day. But politics came AFTER 9/ll. On that day we were all just Americans first - hell, human beings. And Moriarty, telling someone to go fuck themself is not an intelligent articulate answer to someone&#39;s question. Granted, anchorite is a pretty ardent flag-waver, but in this case he and I are not that far apart. I guess talkbacks make for strange bedfellows.

The UN is a &#39;joke&#39; now because it is dysfunctional in a world with a single aggressive superpower. It may well have been the presence of the UN that allowed us to survive the Cold War. The US considers the UN a joke because it does not always do what the US wants it to do in the way that the US wants it to. When the US starts bowing to the wishes of the UN or even accepting the will of other International bodies we may see those bodies (and the UN) starting to function as they were intended. They are bodies of compromise and still sees compromise as defeat.

I thought Anchorite was just asking too, if that was what Moriarty meant -- that was my interpretation. And the controversial films don&#39;t just show that George W is an idiot, it basically shows how America was complacent and how there were so many walls barring communication that day. The walls were built LONG before Bush became president, that&#39;s for sure.
And JAYJEW, you SUCK -- and not just eggs, either.

Malcom_malcolm, hate to disillusion you but the UN is and will always be a joke -- and by the way, the U.S. gives millions and millions a year to the UN and what happens to it? That&#39;s what I&#39;d like to know. The UN helped us to survive the Cold War?? Whaaa? Okay, the most recent thing is that the UN wants to control the Internet worldwide. You okay with that??!

We had acts of terror against the U.S. going back years...but we just ignored it. The U.S. Embassy in London had hardly any security around it like it does now...I can&#39;t believe they let people go up into the Empire State building, even tourists, aren&#39;t they worried over there? I would be!

The UN would do crap as they exist now... sit back and compromise, invade norway, sit back and compromise, commit genocidal slaughters, sit back and comprise, invade france, maybe political sanction, .... basically compromise until they invade one of the 5 permanent members of the security council

The most evocative and spot-on moment of "dramatization" of 9/11 I&#39;ve seen is the 10 or 15 seconds in "United 93" where we hold on the air traffic controllers just staring open-mouthed after the second plane flies into the second building. Their stunned blank response says everything you need to know about that day. Because, it&#39;s not just shock, it&#39;s worse than that. It&#39;s RECOGNITION. Oh yeah. Of course. Here we go...

leave the UN. Sorry, but what have they done, for anybody? They were slow on responding to the Tsunami in Thailand, first responders were the U.S. and Australia and the UN wanted everyone to wear their uniforms like it was them helping!
Yeah, "United 93" was amazing. We need to keep being prepared.

watergate didn&#39;t happen... iran contra didn&#39;t happen... the CIA has never performed black ops to oust democratically elected leaders in foreign countries... everything that went wrong on 9/11 was due to incompetence... nothing ever happens on purpose... there are no "evil" people in the U.S. military who would ever attempt such a thing... blah, blah, blah.

Because the role of the UN is to provide a forum for international dialogue and an observation/peacekeeping force between two mutually agreeable nations who seek a fair third party to help them stay apart. It was never their mandate to stop evil or imperialism. It was their mandate to give the world a voice about these things and to hold nations to moral account by concensus. One shouldn&#39;t be able to be arrogant enough to scoff at world opinion. It smacks of hubris.

nothing in regards to peacekeeping in the middle east. Nothing. They watched. They looked. They watched as Hezbollah built up defenses , tunnels and artillery over six years and did nothing. And what world opinion are you talking about, Malcolm? Iran and Syria? Please elaborate.

Some of you need to step back and eat some fruit or something! Here&#39;s what I really think about this film. Someone said it right, there will be people in the theatre eating nachos and spilling their supermega gulp Pepsi&#39;s all over the floor. Most likely, their cellphones will be blowin&#39; up at the same time. The same morons who flocked in droves to see &#39;The Passion&#39; will fill rusty church buses to go see this piece of shit too. You know the ones. The barely sentient sheep who can seemingly only appreciate the magnitude of an event if it&#39;s been wrapped up into a tidy little 2hr tear jerker. I have too much respect for that day to pay to see people /pretending/ to be trapped in the rubble. I remember going to a restaraunt a week or so after the fact and having difficulty finishing my meal thinking of the poor fucks still buried alive probably dying of thirst. At work the next day there were three cunts who had to watch soap operas every day, and despite the fact that it was only like 9/25, and crews were still sifting through the smoking rubble for human remains, it didn&#39;t matter, I was outvoted and had to turn off CNN for The Young and the Restless. I gurantee you, those three cunts will be at this movie, tissues in one hand, nachos in the other. 9/11 was too horrible an event to be trivialized by film. For any director, for any studio, for any time. It truly was a lowpoint for all of humanity. Lower even than Pearl Harbor which someone else gave as an example of an event played out on film. Pearl Harbor was an act of war by a tangible foe that could be easily retaliated upon. It also had at least some semblance of a military strategy behind it. 9/11 was senseless carnage, no more or less. But what was also senseless was our commander in theifs yee-haa, sixguns blazin&#39;, Clint Eastwood-ish response. Which was exactly what those responsible were hoping for, I&#39;m sure. And Bush delivered in spades. (Well, not at first, but after about ten minutes of stunned silence and non-action, he plunged right in.) "So, you think were just greedy, cowardly, warmongers eh?, We&#39;ll show you! We&#39;ll invade Iraq and let Halliburton rebuild what we destroy! Greedy?, HA! Then we&#39;ll set up prisons in Iraq and all over the world to detain &#39;suspects&#39; without trial, at the same time torturing and humiliating them!, Cowards?, HA! So what if there never were any WMD&#39;s! Saddam was a madman! He tortured and humiliated his own peop- oh, right... Warmongers?, HA!"

... I&#39;m very careful not to bring my personal politics to the site. I must be good at it, because people continually TELL ME what my politics are, and they are continually WRONG. I reviewed this film, not some film in my head. It is impossible to discuss this film without acknowledging that Oliver Stone is the director of it, and that his body of work is a very certain type of material. As I said, this is a non-political movie, but somehow saying that means that I have some giant veiled political agenda. And Anchorite... you&#39;ve done this to me before, accusing me of feelings about America that are entirely YOUR baggage, so don&#39;t act like you&#39;re the wounded party.

interject his political views into his reviews. It&#39;s usually a pretty straight up analysis. I could be wrong, maybe I&#39;ve even jumped on his case about it too,but I don&#39;t recall doing so. Harry on the other hand draws attention away from his commentary on film and draws TBer&#39;s fire right at his politics. Intentional? Who knows, but Mori keeps on topic.

and there was hardly anyone there. A lot of people just there by themselves, including me. It was a very emotional experience, but I do have to agree with some of Mori&#39;s sentiments on the movie. As far as comparing this to United 93, and the "feeling" of that day, the far superior movie is United 93. Someone mentioned above that one great scene in United 93 where the traffic controllers stood mouths wide open says a lot about what happened that day. The sense of confusion. Also, United 93 unfolded events in the movie in relative real time where you could only stand back and simply watch (much like how everyone in the world watched that day). There are moments in World Trade Center that stop and overly-dramatize the situation, like lookly around at confused people with their briefcases in slow motion with heavy music playing. World Trade Center is still a good movie. It knows how to pull at the heart-strings, obviously because it&#39;s 9/11 and you would have to have a black heart to not be somewhat moved by the sense of hope from both of the survivors families during such a chaotic time. There is great performances by the women in the guys lives, Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaul. Both are fantastic. Even Stephen Dorff does a pretty good job at the end. What is really a great achievement is the physical recreation of ground zero and the twin towers. But, that&#39;s just special effects fluff. They had a lot of money to work. So, overall, very well produced, but looking back at our first two 9/11 movies....I prefered that subtle approach of filmmaking by Greengrass with United 93. Much more effective and powerful.

Russia was fighting terrorits, including Al Quaeda, long before the US started and in fact, the US was opposing their battle in Chechnya at every turn. The Europeans were all fighting terrorism in their own way without labelling it. In his own way, Saddam was merrily fighting terrorism and extremism in the Middle East. More than just coming late to the party, the US declares that it isn&#39;t a party until they get there and nobody goes home until they say so.

They lived with it. They safeguarded against it. Never did they combat it. That is not a criticism. In all fairness to them , no one knew what was metastisizing in front of their(our)eyes. It took many incidents(Death decree on Salman Rushdie, Hostage crisis in Iran, bombings in Buenos Ares etc) culminating in a 9/11 to wake EVERYBODY the fuck up! Typical human nature, ignore it, maybe it will go away.

the first forty minutes were very impactful. but flashback after flashback of the families really starts to wear on you. The shots at the end of the empty streets were so beautiful and horrible at the same time. I think the movie was a noble effort at capturing the mood of the day but it seemed like stone wasnt sure if the movie should be only about the families or only about the events or somewhere inbetween. It doesnt balance it well.

Don&#39;t you both ever give it a rest? I mean, I already put you two through the grinder back in Harry&#39;s TB, so what else is left to say except your worn-out, repetitious right-wing Zionist propaganda tripe? And Anchorite, seriously you need to read a review thoroughly before you copy and paste one of your all-purpose, accusatory comments into the TB. Is Alan Dershowitz paying you by the post?

are totally misinformed. Sadam fight terrorism? Yah, he only killed about 400,000 women and children that were buried in mass graves...if you call that fighting terrorism. Sometimes they would save an extra bullet by shooting the mom and kid at the same time.
And yeah, the U.S. came late to the party, but unless you&#39;ve been hiding under a rock (which maybe you have been) I seem to recall that Madrid, London and India were recently attacked by bombings as well. Having lived in London, I have to say it&#39;s one of the most vulnerable places for terrorists there is. They didn&#39;t "wake up" either, until July&#39;s bombings of last year...and I&#39;m not even sure that did it. To say that Europeans were fighting terrorism way before the U.S.?? You gotta be kidding me.

You know, I&#39;d rather spend time talking about Superman but goddamn, your post was just insanity. You know what your problem is? It&#39;s the same problem Joseph Lieberman has. You could be a loyal American if you wanted to be. But instead, every single opinion you have is governed by its impact on Israel. Israel - one of the world&#39;s most corrupt, most criminal nations on earth. America&#39;s ally for no reason but that our politicians are paid off. It has been committing genocide for decades now - slow, torturous genocide. It is not the angelic state you would like people to be brainwashed into thinking. As for your disgusting bad-mouthing of Europe and South America - they did a HELL of a lot more to save your fellow Jews than the fucking Zionists who deliberately collaborated with the Nazis to escalate the Holocaust. And for what? A desert state built on the blood of the innocents who were already there, and are fighting to stay there. You know, if you were any kind of decent person, you&#39;d have a shred of gratitude for the countries who sacrificed to save your people. But like a typical Zionist traitor, you have nothing but contempt for everyone but your own kind. That is the lowest form of racism I can possibly think of. And what did Benjamin Netayahu say again, on 9/11 when asked for his view? "It&#39;s good. Well, it&#39;s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy for Israel" Zionist scum.

Anchorite can say whatever he pleases, and he does. But we went through this subject in an over 1,100 post TB for Harry&#39;s review. So we have history. Please look it up and read it too - it was a fun party. And by the way, you don&#39;t think England battled terrorism before? What was the IRA doing? But they resolved that - through negotiations and diplomacy, not bloodshed. Because both sides were once ruthless to each other.

So, you like Superman but you hate Jews and Israel? How ironic...Superman was created by two Jews.
A loyal American? Brokeback, there&#39;s several hundred thousand Americans in Israel right now. Israel is like another U.S. state...like Illinois or California. Don&#39;t you know any history at all, or 1930s prewar German history the only stuff you know? &#39;Cause you sure talk like it.

were terrorists up until 9/11. Know why? Terrorism wasn&#39;t "trendy" anymore -- they couldn&#39;t get funding for their so-called "cause". Yeah, the IRA negotiated alright...especially when they killed all those people in Omagh (including a pregnant woman).

Yeah, Superman was created by two Jews. When did you hear me say I hate Jews? Do you not read, or are you wholly satisfied with your own ignorance? And there were tens of thousands of Americans in Lebanon when Israel started bombing the shit out of it. Where&#39;s your loyalty to them? As for Israel being like another state, we need to start imposing some serious taxation. They&#39;ve been in arrears for 50 fucking years now.

Aug. 9, 2006, 10:16 p.m. CST

by DudeOne

Yeah, Anchorite, I think you&#39;re right. He&#39;s totally making me yawn (!) right now. His posts are really good to read if you&#39;re an insomiac.

See, you don&#39;t fight terrorism with bombs. You DO fight it with appeasement. Terrorism is born from the same thing that caused Columbine, or postal workers to go postal, or ex-husbands to murder their wives and children: frustration and impotence. All that the War on Terror has done is create more terrorism worldwide through causing more misery and sense of impotence. Terrorism is a misguided and hateful cry for help but it is a cry for help nonetheless and something needs to be done about the distress and impotence if ever there is to be hope of a decrease in terrorism. Appeasement shouldn&#39;t be a dirty word and neither should compromise.

That is the most ridiculous, naive, idiotic thing I have ever read. It&#39;s romantic, in its misguided way, but let&#39;s not act like appeasement will do anything but empower the terrorists. If this country had any balls, we&#39;d cut off all ties with the oil regimes, hire all our scientists and engineers to come up with a workable replacement to oil, and let the Irans and Saudi Arabias of the world fester without U.S. money.

Kung Fu Hustler, Malcom has to go back and read about Neville Chamberlain who appeased Hitler. Yah, signed a peace treaty with Hitler and as soon as good ol&#39; appeasing Neville was out of the room, Hitler and his pals were rolling around the floor laughing. Appeasement and compromise ARE two dirty words. And how far will you go to appease radical Islamists, Malcolm? Let all your women relatives dress up in burquas and not work or go to school? Do "honor killings" if they won&#39;t marry a man of your choice? Do without television and the Internet? How far will you go?

terrorists are just the kids in high school who get picked on by the jocks and ignored by the girls then one day they and in extreme cases they act out in a desperate attempt to get attention that they feel they deserve...isn&#39;t that all terrorists want? Attention on them? I mean they want to feel they matter, feel they have a role in the world, and above all be respected. I am in no way defending cowardly terrorists who kill innocent people or any shit they pull. Fuck them, but at the same time it seems like (easiest way for me to get my opion across) its nothing but small dick syndrome. They think their cock isn&#39;t as big so they need to show off other ways to try and get "the girls" and the attention and respect. Every terrorist is a product of the napoleon complex. So I wonder if perhaps EARLIER in time had the US (if there was a chance) met with some of these "Terrorist Organizations", Governements, and Countries and maybe work something out and showed stern respect and pledged to be diplomatic early on with them perhaps alot less violence would be happening. (By Earlier I mean WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY before 9/11)

or the playground than a radical extreme form of living and behaving...while living in England I heard about this stuff all the time...women being killed because they dated someone outside of the religion (killed by their father or brother, no less). It&#39;s a medieval religion that wants only to control, and if you don&#39;t go along you will be killed. Totally different from bullying and just wanting attention. Meeting with terrorists doesn&#39;t do any good, because in the end they just want to see you dead if you don&#39;t subscribe to their religion. It&#39;s hard for us in the West to understand this train of thought.

Its not about sitting down with Al Quada and negotiating a compromise anymore than it is about fighting a war on Terror until terrorism somehow magically surrenders. We need to accept that Western values are not something that needs to be impressed and forced upon the East. We shouldn&#39;t seek to bombard them with our culture and values no matter how foreign we find them. Terrorism isn&#39;t the result of evil organizations (though its more elaborate techniques may be), but of a frustrated and emasculated society. It has no relation to Neville Chamberlain&#39;s situation and will really have to be resolved by one society recognizing again that The White Man&#39;s Burden is as wrong and destructive now as it was with British colonialism. We don&#39;t need to export Hiltonism, for example.

about Israel being the cause of all discontent. A simple review about two heroic firemen has blossomed into a full-fledged pro and con Israel/Islamic free-for-all. See what you&#39;ve hath wrought Anchorite, with your "Israel is the center of everyone(s) universe" DOGMA! Not only did you fan the embers of Moriarty&#39;s wrath, but you&#39;ve turned this forum into another bastion of negativity. You&#39;re like the Randall Flagg of the internet...Obviously you thrive on chaos by turning brother against brother, dog against cat, Lohan against Hilton. How do you sleep at night?

Western values are envied by the Europeans, give me a break! Why do they buy our TV shows, our clothes and imitate our way of life? We are not forcing anything on them...I lived in Europe for eight years and had friends in different countries; they would love to have the U.S. way of life, with all the free trade and commerce and everything. Malcolm, don&#39;t talk to me about the world when you obviously haven&#39;t been even overseas!

After a building is blown up by Israel. They pose as dead people in the rubble. So they look like the poor victims. They never do anything. That tells you a lot about these people. -
http://p085.ezboard.com/fbase37sdiscussionfourmnatalieportman.showMessage?topicID=9033.topic

Event though Gus Van Rant already said this, up at the top of the talk back.. I still think its true. With Flight 91 and this film.. I think Hollywood is just trying to cash in.. They dont give a fuck about telling a story.. They just want to make money off this shit.. If this movie does well.. I wont be suprised if Michael Bay directs a World Trade Center movie with Ben Afleck and some Love of his, caught in a love triangle...trying to get out of the building alive..all while the building is going down...

or is Mori the best reviewer on this site by far. Quint is good as well as a few others but Mori seems to write with such intelligence and from the heart. I used to love Harry&#39;s reviews cause I noticed we loved all the same movies. Then I realized he just loves ALL movies.

Although I usually tend to disagree with every syllable you utter and you do definitely go on witch hunts for things that don&#39;t match your politics I really have to applaud you for admitting when you&#39;re wrong. That takes a lot to do on message board full of people that think they know everything about anything.

sorry man, what you know about the IRA can be written on the back of a postage stamp. The "troubles" are still ongoing despite the alleged ceasefire. The so-called Real IRA are continuing with their alleged war- I admit that they are a marginalised splinter group that have been quiet for a long time- but nevertheless. The peace in Northern Ireland was achieved through a shameful appeasement- Including the release of some of the most despicable sectarian scum(both loyalist and republican) on the planet- and the IRA have not kept their side of the *cough* bargain in any way, shape or form. Strangely enough 9/11 was hugely instrumental in the actual IRA looking to settle with Britain as all of a sudden the noraid contributions plummetted and they were no longer freedom fighters but terrorist scum. I&#39;m not looking for a fight, and I am not baiting you- and would much rather discuss superman, but just to inform you of some facts about them.

...how certain posters make these retarded, lying claims, such as "Americans think terrorism didn&#39;ty exist until 9/11." A complete lie that America-haters innvent, when what they are observing is the shock that Americans experienced just like we were all human beings. Obviously some folks here despise America just like all bigots hate their targets, and they all have reasons too--like "America has done bad things." Which is the bigot&#39;s way--they don&#39;t hate the individuals who did those things, they hate the group those individuals belonged to. So Americans who were shocked and saddened don&#39;t have the right to mourn a day when 3000 of their fellow Americans died? Oh, OK. Of course, once we don&#39;t observe 9/11, it&#39;ll be "Americans try to pretend 9/11 didn&#39;t happen, they have no souls, no sense of history like European countries do!" America is the greatest nation, with the greatest people, who&#39;ve come from all nations to be here. All you haters have is your jealousy and rage, whcih probably comes from your unsatisfying lives.

That is bullshit, a significant (but not universal) proportion of Americans underestimated terrorism prior to 9/11. Don&#39;t forget that for all it&#39;s power, importance and wealth a large percentage of the population is hugely insular (I can&#39;t remember the percentage but isn&#39;t there a vast amount of people that don&#39;t own, and never will own, a passport). I nearly got my arse kicked in Boston for calling someone collecting for noraid a provo cunt. And look at the plummet in Noraid&#39;s collections post-9/11 the 2 are clearly related. 9/11 bought home in a truly horrendous way what terrorism is actually capable of- and not just that bought it right to your doorstep. Of course America has a right- if not a duty- to mourn 9/11, that is just common sense. I find it interesting that the majority of posters that post venemous anti USA posts (zfisk, brokeback, ginger twit, jayjew etc) seem to be American. And curse yu seph. I blame the catnip tits

I wasn&#39;t writing a dissertation on the IRA issue, LP. I brought up the iRA as an example of how England was fighting terrorism before 9/11, because the ingenius and ever-virginal DoctorWho said that Europe never fought terrorism prior to 9/11. Because his historical worldview centers around Israel only. As for Anchorite and DoctorWho and their hatred of Europe ... you may call it appeasement. But after going through World War II, where the war was in your backyard and not across the ocean, you may think twice before instigating some more violent shit. And your accusations of Europeans are so fucking loathsome. They saved your people as best they can, while your own Zionist forbears encouraged their destruction. And what do they get for it? A fucking couple of proto-Zionist armchair war-mongers calling for the dissolution of the UN and calling them anti-Semitic. JayJew isn&#39;t the only one making Jews look bad. You Zionists are a better job of it.

I have reread your origingal post, and I apologise about the tone- it wasn&#39;t bait, as I said in the post- the point I tried to make was that the good friday agreement was appeasement not diplomacy. Don&#39;t call me a zionist. I am not, nor am I liberal, nor right wing. I already corrected anchorite above on a similar line. If you took offence then I apologise. I am not jewish, and am not a fucking zionist, I certainly didn&#39;t write anything offensive apart from educating you re the IRA (which looking at it again wasn&#39;t that offensive)I haven&#39;t commented on Israel or the middle east- so try to read before you launch a zionazi type tirade at me.

I wasn&#39;t inferring you being a Zionist. My post began being directed to you, but switched to Anchorite and DoctorWho by the middle. Sorry for the sloppy transition. I wasn&#39;t offended by your comment about the IRA, just clarifying what I said and why I said it. Incidentally, if you&#39;ll notice, I haven&#39;t used the term Zionazi in this TB but I&#39;m biting my lip very hard to keep it that way. Although I found it funny someone called me BrokebackcowboyNazi, which never even occurred back in Harry&#39;s TB. That was highly amusing.

Therefore the IRA/"Islamo-fascist" comparison is perfectly valid. Terrorism is not a philosophy or a religion. Terrorism does not equal Islam. That&#39;s probably the single biggest problem with the "War on Terror" as conceived and executed (largely through domestic PR campaigns). The average American now equates the word Terrorist with the general concept of a radical Arabic Muslim (just as for years the Average American thought the word Liberal was akin to the concept of Communism, even some Americans who espoused liberal values were afraid to be labeled as such). Terrorists come in all shapes and sizes, all religous flavors (just ask the families of Tim McVeigh&#39;s victims) and all colors of the rainbow. Terrorism is defined as "Systemic use of violence, terror, and intimidation to acheive an end." Period. No innate religous or philosophical motivations implied and none should be inferred. Can it be used to further a political or religous agenda? You bet your sweet smelly asses. But it can also be used for simple extortion. It&#39;s a tool. By its very definition, terrorism is really only a half-step down the road from international politics as practiced by about 3/4 of the world for most of our species&#39; history and, especially for those caught in the crossfire in the Middle East right now, it&#39;s frighteningly close to the tactics the U.S. is employing in Iraq. And before someone accuses me of being anti-American on the basis of that statement, look back at the definition of "Terrorism" I provided (pulled directly from Webster&#39;s II New College Dictionary as published in 1995). I&#39;m simply making an observation based on fact.

I&#39;ve seen this on the internet so it must be true. That several Islamo-nazis from Saudi Arabia took flying lessons and hijacked unsuspecting passenger jets and crashed them into the WTC towers, killing 3000 innocents, guilty of nothing more than showing up for work that day. The force of the crash weakened the buldings. The explosion blew off insulation that allowed the intense fire to weaken the remaining steel. Then the buildings collapsed from their own weight. I know it&#39;s unbelievable especially since film of the event shows a UFO in the reflection of nearby windows. With this new shocking information, maybe it might be prudent to target suspicious Muslims who might try to use passenger planes again? Say, BLOWING THEM UP FROM LONDON TO AMERICA with liquid explosives! But I guess the Brits could be space aliens too. One member of Scotland yard is reported to have a sixth finger on one hand.... Bush didn&#39;t lie, he didn&#39;t steal elections, he didn&#39;t blow up New Orleans dikes, didn&#39;t blow off National Guard Duty, didn&#39;t torure prisoners, and damn sure didn&#39;t blow up the WTC. You pathetic morons need to get a life and realize the enemy isn&#39;t your countrymen, but murderous bastards who ugh! are religious, oppress women, kill homosexuals, hate atheists, wanna ban everything you enjoy, and would like nothing better than to blow you up your momma and cut your liberal freakin&#39; head off while you watch. And that goes for the traitorous looney left leadership of the Democratic Party who put political opportunism ahead of public security. It&#39;s time for responsible people in this country to yell ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! And start really pilloring peaceniks, nutcases, commie professors, terrorist-loving-picture-faking mainstream media, and the rest who undermine our efforts fighting the real enemy. And also time to tell Iran&#39;s mullahs, that if we get hit again like 9/11, we&#39;re not gonna investigate or protest to the UN, but we&#39;re coming after them. The only thing these Islamo-nazis understand is to kill them all, and let Allah sort &#39;em out.

What fun would that be? This is America DAMMIT! FREE SPEECH, APPLE PIE, ETC, ETC. ETC. And here you be suggesting censorship because ol&#39; Jayjew posted something you did&#39;nt like. Get a grip son, it makes you look like one those anti-freespeech jihad holy war dudes that y&#39;all been talking shit about for the few hours.

Last I checked, it was a movie website where idiots like you and I can post our feelings on anal rape by George Lucas. I&#39;m sorry if I believe in things like common decency and not advocating the death of Americans in another terrorist attack. I&#39;m crazy like that, I guess...

Hundreds of brits would have died as well if we hadn&#39;t stopped it, you bloody moron. This would have been comparable to 9/11 and if you think loss of life is a) funny or b) justified then you should be banned from this site. This only proves that we were right to back the US in the war on terror- the world is full of scum bags like you.

I can come to this board, read everyones posts and not be effected by anyone. Not even JayJew and his 911/benny hill edit. I laughed at the reality of what I was looking at - comedy music put to tragic footage. Does that make any sense to anyone? One Time Doc Pazuzu even made me feel like I was some sort of immoral fool because I linked to a web site that was posted and I came back laughing. But it didn&#39;t matter that it was actually a very funny webpage, what mattered was that I was laughing at the humour to someone who also had links to some nazi thoughtpages. Even though I didn&#39;t see any nazi pages. The point is..... why the fuck are all of you so bloody high and mighty. 911 happened, there&#39;s a movie about it, there&#39;s people who think the government was involved in it&#39;s set up, there are those who flatly refuse. There are those that think the government is to stupid to orchestrate such an event, and those who think the government is totally just in it&#39;s &#39;peace&#39; efforts. What this all boils down to is this..... I love you guys. mwha!

After 9/11, I was stunned how many people didn&#39;t even know who Osama Bin Laden was...my mom,my sister... people who I thought were well-infomed I realized didn&#39;t know jack shit! Americans ARE insular. It should be standard fare that every American goes over seas at least once in their lives...it truly does broaden the mind and enrich your view of people and the world.

as, well, I am not interested in watching a dramatised version of 9/11. It makes me uneasy, which does not really put me in the right frame of mind for it. There seems to be something unsavoury about Oliver "paranoid twat" Stone making a film based on events that draws conspiracy nuts out of the woodwork. What little interest I had was snuffed out by Mori&#39;s review. I only started posting here as I had to correct anchorite, and then Brokeback about the IRA, as they were talking uninformed drivel. I like the rows though and keep posting here because it seems to be a slow AICN news week. And the real news makes me too fucking depressed for words.

You seem smart, surely you know that there is a huge difference between uniformed soldiers acting with force and terrorists blowing up a shopping centre in that well known tactical town, Warrington? Also, I have been thinking about this since this morning I think the difference (and correct me if I am wrong,as I am assuming an awful lot here) between your "traditional"- for want of a better expression- terrorists like the IRA and ETA and this Islamic breed is fanaticism. Turdly B. Liar proved that they can be appeased, no matter how cravenly, which will bring in a cease-fire of some description. Whereas it is impossible to appease a fanatic as the end goal they seek is far less tangible than a seperate basque state. Al Qaeda and co seem to be Isalmic terrorists, they lack a manifesto, have only the most nebulous of goals and are run by, and made up of, fanatics. Their sort can never be appeased. Sorry, mate, that was dull.

More than once, jayjew has called for the outright decimation of the Lebanese people - not specifically Hezbollah or terrorists, etc. No, he thinks Israel is doing the world a favor by killing "Lebs". Now, I don&#39;t know about you, but calling for a systematic extermination of a group of people pretty much qualifies as hate speech. This sight has banned folks for less. ** Speaking of which, did anyone else see the trouncing Mori gave QTN in the last Transformers TB? OUCH!!!

and therefore a perfectly acceptable time to be catnipped-up. Sorry I totally misread the post. Same as I did with Brokeback&#39;s earlier. The IRA and al qaeda are comparable as terrorism is a tactic, but the difference between them and a conventional army is as you say. I blame work.

Who is not seeing that? 10% to four different charities....gee! That&#39;s a whole 2.5% for each of those charities. And with Oliver Stones recent track record (Alexander....) they should each get about 67.84 for those charities. Not That Charities usually DO SHIT WITH THE MONEY ANYWAY! Like the fucking Red Cross deciding to save 90% of the 911 funds for "future disasters". Until the whistle was blown on their corrupt fucking asses. This is all so hypocritical and self defeating. There is no one in place to check these people, so who knows what the do with the money. For Fuck&#39;s sake. The Katrina Victims Still Dont have FUCKING SHIT, and there has been hundereds of millions of dollars given. We live in a heartless society I tell you. Its fucking madness.

....oh and how I hate typing that piece of shit&#39;s name....Glodene, at some point the whole "free speech" thing has to be looked at hard. I&#39;m sure when our forefathers created the idea of FREE SPEECH, they sure as shit never figured on a waste of sperm like Jay Jew using it for THIS kinda hate-filled shit. So, please, please,PLEASE don&#39;t defend that asshole. I get it..he&#39;s trying to start shit, but at some point this guy needs to be banned and of course only to be resurrected as some other shit stirrer. Oh, and a damn good movie,WTC, by the way. Well acted and lovingly handled.

and it makes me wanna kill arab scum!! Fuck Iraqi women and children--they need to burn just like the rest of &#39;em! Turn their country into a parking lot! Nothing but total extermination will suffice! Nothing is more important than gasoline for my giant S.U.V. and fuck any liberal pinko that says otherwise!! Dubya again in 2008! We&#39;re putting an end to terror forever! U.S.A.!!! U.S.A.!!!! We&#39;re #1!! FUCK YEAH!

...anchorite. I didn&#39;t. And you&#39;re right, it is very close to covering what any use of military force (in an aggressive stance) amounts to. If the definition is true, then any act of military aggression can, from someone&#39;s perspective, be viewed as an act of terrorism. I know that&#39;s tough to digest when one wants to have clear good guys and bad guys in conflicts and one&#39;s "home team" isn&#39;t in a defensive posture, but it&#39;s reality. I&#39;m simply acknowledging it. And if you acknowledge that the classification of terrorists is relative based on the dictionary definition, then there&#39;s simply no way to accurately say the majority of terrorists operating on this planet at this time are Islamic. From an uncompromising U.S. (and Israel) centric point of view, that statement may be true, but from a different (and no less legitimate by virtue of the definition) perspective, all those U.S. and Israeli soldiers are the terrorists. This is why a "War on Terror" is nucking futz. It&#39;s unwinnable because it&#39;s undefinable from jump. Unless the U.S. wipes out every nation with the potential to mount an aggressive, non-defensive military campaign (in the spirit of pre-emptive strikes) that was never gets won. It&#39;s a standing excuse for the U.S. to act aggressively toward whatever nation it feels it should at that specific point in time. It&#39;s a dangerous foreign policy to say the very least and, in the long run, economically unsound (wars really only being good for the economy when they end relatively fast). You ask a great question about Israel. Why aren&#39;t they going after Iran? It&#39;s their issue, after all. And they know as well as all of Iran&#39;s Israel-disliking neighbors that the U.S. will probably "have Israel&#39;s back" in any Israeli/Iranian conflict, which would be sufficient to keep most of Iran&#39;s would-be allies in the region at bay (at least on the official level)...if the U.S. weren&#39;t so publicly embroiled in the clusterfucked quagmire of an Iraqi civil war (that we effectively started). It doesn&#39;t take much to throw off the delicate balance of tension that keeps the world as we know it functioning. The U.S. acting like it, of all the nations in the world, should somehow be immune to attacks by terrorists of foreing origin (especially when it isn&#39;t immune to attacks by U.S. born and bred terrorists) is just the kind of simplistic idea that pushes things over the edge. Ideally, nobody should be the victim of a terrorist attack. But as long as people know that other people will respond to fear (and going to war with a third-party nation is a response that actually helped increase terrorism in the region), no one can ever defeat the concept of terrorism or ensure that it will never happen again.

-------"What I find interesting right now is that Iran is not doing a very good job of keeping its support of Hezbollah under wraps"-------
That is like saying,why are the Brits supporting POLAND during WWII. I know you have been brainwashed by your Pro Israel media... But Hezbollah was founded as an awnser to the Invading Israeli forces in 1982.
Hezbollah is not an Terrorist group. I do not agree with all the things that they do, but I can fully understand why that they do it...
Lebanon is litterly BOMBED to HELL and Israel sending even more soldiers over the border!?
FUCK AMERICA and BRITON for letting this happen!

Dude, what planet are you living on? "Hezbollah is not a terrorist orginization"?? What do you call randomly lobbing rockets into citites to kill civillians? I know, they&#39;re only "JOOOOOS" and they deserve it right? Hey, wrestle with this quote from Nasrallah: " The Zionist entity&#39;s weakness is their adherence to this world(how dare they)...our strength is the WILLINGNESS TO SACRIFICE OUR BLOOD AND CHILDREN". Or how about this little gem:" If they (Jews) all gather in Israel it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." NOW, please produce a similar quote from ANY western leader that equals those in haterd and genocidal inference....I&#39;m waiting.

are you insane? Or do you not read. Because Lebanon took Hezbollah terrorists into their government, and those terrorists built artillery, tunnels and planned to kill Israelis for the past six years. Why are you mad at Britain and the U.S. when Hezbollah has been kidnapping and killing Israelis for the past six years? Don&#39;t you think that&#39;s a little, uh, MISDIRECTED??
And yes, JAYJEW should be banned. Or else put on plane to Iran, and check out his free speech ideas over there and how well that would work.

Unfortunately, the answer they will give you is that the Lebanese Army is only a token army. This is all a result of Syria&#39;s influence through the years after being brought in to halt the civil war. While they were there, they were the tough guy on the block. It can be convincingly argued that Lebanon (proper) does not have the capability to reel in Hezbollah. As a result, they&#39;ve operated unchecked for the past 6 years.

Looks like AGE IIX is drawing everybodys fire with that idiodic post. That honor usually falls on Brokedick(who I&#39;m sure would agree with every word). Thanks for the kind words. As I say...I seek clarity, not neccessarily agreement. I want to hear conlusions based on factual info. If you can lead someone step by step thru your analysis and LOGICALLY articulate a position (even if it&#39;s one I heartily disagree with),then I respect that. Just throwing out vague, unsubstantiated anecdotes and posting links to conspiritorial neo-nazi websites, just exposes one as lacking any serious thought on these things. Thanks dude.

I also understand why a guy who walks into his bedroom to fin his wife fucking some dude would flip and blow them both away - I sympathize with that guy - but he&#39;s still going to jail for the rest of his life.

You have a good point about Syria, but after the Syrians left around a year ago, the Lebanon government could have kept Hezbollah from taking seats in Parliament -- they could&#39;ve said no, we won&#39;t allow that.

look, none of you really fucking care, just stop it. having been there and witnessed it, i know how crazy and fucked up it really felt. then i started asking questions; why did this happen? 9/11 didn&#39;t change the world, it just brought the world to the US&#39;s doorstep -- a world the US helped create by backing dictators and training terrorists (among them being the guy who orchestrated the attack). so, look, NeoCons, you don&#39;t care, so stop pretending that you do; also, Red States, you HATE New York; always have and always will; its where all the non-white, non-christian, homosexyuls live, remember? so go back to the methlab, NASCAR rally, Church, or Lynard Skynard cover band show and shut the f*ck up.

Good Lord - there are some ignorant fuckwits on this site.. attacking the UN without mentioning there are nations involved in it - would they rather go back to world wars and xenophobia - or are you disturbingly feeble minded? Guessing you&#39;re mostly americans then.. As a real person representing most of Earth it pains me every time I see regurgitated propaganda supporting T.W.A.T. The proud citizens of US Empire never bothered to check on their foreign policy before 2001. But now like a bull in the ring they&#39;re trying to fuck up the world, dragging "the willing" into it, but losing more and more battles until the once powerful Empire has too many enemies and faces more catastrophy. Statistical Fact - The majority of americans, who incidentally sucked up the whole Saddam behind 9/11 - WMD bollox, are stupid!

"More Fake Sentimentality for the NeoCon Set!"
How can you believe that? Your rant was bigoted nonsense hand fed to you from hollywood. And 9/11 did change the world. It showed us all that the status quo was no good. We need to change things. And diplomacy only exposes our weakness and stupidy. Evertime there is a cease fire along the Israeli border the Islamo-crazies just use that time to re-arm and re-position.

think you know all Americans backwards and forwards. I lived in Europe for 8 years, so I can see both sides -- what an idiot you are! Come on, where are you from? Out with it, "Real Person Representing Most of the Earth", as you call yourself.

Before you condemn Israel for defending itself, don&#39;t forget they are surrounded on all sides by arab nations who want to wipe them off the face of the earth. Islamic extremists (who are armed & backed by arab governments) want to kill every last Jewish man, woman and child on the planet- and that extends to the populations of the UK and US. And they have the means to do so. Sooner or later Iran will be in a position to nuke Israel. Do we want to see a second Jewish holocaust? The Israelis simply can&#39;t afford to excercise the same restraint Britain and America have shown.

...their own mini communities of nations which serve to sap power from the UN in many instances - for well or ill. Nasser, Nehru, and Tito did it with their "Third World" alliance (i.e non-Western world, non-Soviet world, but the third world, which is the original meaning of the phrase).

to begin with. What have they done? Are they doing anything right now? Besides sitting on fat butts.
And I agree with Lucasisking. Aside from Israel defending their right to live, you can be sure that Europe and the US will be next. Israel is only the first step in this business.

"9/11 didn&#39;t change the world, it just brought the world to the US&#39;s doorstep" Weirdly enough I think I agree with this. Yes 9/11 changed America and American politics forever, but most of the changes toward more violence in the world after that have been wrought by America&#39;s (Bush&#39;s) blunders post-9/11. All this terrorism and extremism and violence existed well before 9/11, but we didn&#39;t much care until, well, the world was brought to our doorstep that day. I&#39;m not saying America is 100% to blame for the state of the world today, but we fucked up enough to where we contributed a hell of a lot to it. Just thought I&#39;d try and put a little perspective on that . . .

the world was brought to our doorstep that day." That was true for a large swath of the Washington political scene. I wonder what would have happened if President Clinton had not had to deal with Whitewater and the $40 million plus Ken Starr investigation, along with the impeachment proceedings. With that frenzy going on, how could anyone properly stand watch?

when he was offered Osama Bin Laden THREE times by Syria, and refused. The guy didn&#39;t want to look bad. That was a frenzy, wasn&#39;t it? For us. He never wanted to see his approval points go down.
And no, America isn&#39;t to blame for the state of the world today. In fact,America contributes millions of dollars and resources to the world at large, as WELL as the UN, and apparently this doesn&#39;t get noticed much (especially by Mechasheeva, who seems to subscribe the hippie 1960s days)

So sue me. By the way, I&#39;d like to quote myself here - "I&#39;m not saying America is 100% to blame for the state of the world today". Stop trying to paint me as an idiot to support your own politics. Of course I know America contributes money to good causes, but they contribute a shitload more money to blowing stuff up real good and looking for nonexistant WMDs, and that&#39;s a fact.

...I&#39;ll take a leap of faith and assume we&#39;re going to hold a theoretical conversation without trying to attack one another&#39;s credibility or character. SHould the U.S. back Israel in a War against Iran? That depends on what you mean by "back." I honestly believe that, in a one-on-one nation-to-nation conflict, Israel could pretty well trounce Iran. That&#39;s just based on the Israeli soldiers I&#39;ve met and the rare combination of skill and conviction they&#39;ve demonstrated as warriors. In my ideal world, the role of the U.S. in such a conflict has already been partly played by our supplying of Israel with superior weapons and technology. The rest of our role would be to essentially watch Israel&#39;s back...like the guy who looks on while his buddy is in a fair fist fight and prevents others from jumping in. To me, that is the ideal role for the U.S. military in the world...to keep it fair. And I think the very suggestion that we might become involved in a conflict between Israel and more than one Arab nation, should they ever decide to gang up on her and wipe her off the map, is a pretty big part of what&#39;s kept that from happening. But today&#39;s circumstances aren&#39;t at all ideal. We simply do not have the resources or the resolve as a nation at this point in time to serve as a convincing deterrent. The whole world knows it after watching us struggle in Iraq for so long, and the Arabic world absolutely knows it. Israel knows it, too, which may be why they aren&#39;t choosing this moment to go after Iran. The best thing for the U.S. right now and, ultimately, for Israel, would be for us to strategically withdraw from Iraq...as you said, they&#39;ve had their opportunity to embrace American style freedom. They apparently don&#39;t want it. It&#39;s silly, at this point to argue about whether or not we ever should have gone there to offer them that opportunity. We did. It hasn&#39;t worked out as we hoped. Bring the boys (and girls) home,. Recoup our strength. Rebuild our morale. Make Americans (all Americans, not just the "my country, wrong or right" crowd) proud of being Americans again, confident in the belief that their nation&#39;s heart is in the right place. Then we can position ourselves as a nation of would-be white knights who will ride in and correct injustices (like an Arab-world gang bang on Israel or the genocide of African peoples by would-be warlords). In an ideal world, the UN would be an effectual international conclave, but the organization has become a joke (in no small part due to the way America has marginalized its relevance in our international policy decisionmaking) and we would be its most powerful, most respected champions. That respect would come not from those who fear our military might but from those who admire our values, principals and the way in which we conduct ourselves. All of that is based on perception, which is why I still maintain you are wrong in your assertion that other points of view can ever be discounted. Each must be at the very least understood (even if that understanding leads others to conclude that point of view can&#39;t possibly co-exist peacefully in the world we all share). Whatever other personal faults they might have had, leaders like Kennedy and Reagan and, for most of his tenure, Clinton understood that the way the world perceives America is a huge part of the nation&#39;s power and influence. The current administration doesn&#39;t get that at all. Now I&#39;m trusting you, here, anchorite. I&#39;ve laid out my personal thoughts and pie-in-the-sky wishes on matters neither you nor I have one bit of control over. I&#39;m curious to hear your response. I&#39;m running, just like Charlie Brown, confident that this time it&#39;ll really happen. That football&#39;s getting kicked and a real honest to goodness intellectual discussion is going to take place. Please don&#39;t yank the ball away again and start pontificating about the weak character of moral relativists (especially when I&#39;m simply being a realist in a world where perception is reality) and how you think I just want to undermine America and make it weak (I think I&#39;ve made it quite clear that I&#39;d like to see us strong and proud again). Don&#39;t be Lucy, man. Not this time.

a tongue-in-cheek reply not meant to be taken seriously. Ugh . . . make one post expressing my viewpoints in calm and civil manner and I get these people making "clever" remarks regarding my intelligence and my bravery. Whaddya want me to do, go sign up for the military so I can fight in Iraq, a war we never should&#39;ve started to begin with?

I missed the tounge and cheek slant dude. And I am by no means a "love it or leave it" type guy. I just don&#39;t buy the blame America first nonsense. The peril of Islamic Jihadists...the defining issue of our time...is something that you can trace all the way back to WWI. It doesn&#39;t have ONE specific point of origin landing on the American doorstep.

I think Iran would give Israel a VERY hard time if they went head to head. Not because of the nuclear issue. They have MILLIONS of trained young people (indoctrinated since birth) in martyrdom,death to the west, Jews are sub-human etc. propaganda. There&#39;s a name for these groups which I have to go back and look up...but it&#39;s pretty sobering. There were accounts during the Iran/Iraq war where waves and waves of these youths would atttack Iraqis with no concern for their lives , and overwhelm them. Iraqi accounts of this were chilling. The bodies would pile up and Iraqi soldiers wnet a little crazy having to cut down boys as young as 12. Maybe somebody recalls the specific name of these suicide troops.

I agree with virtually everything in your post. However, I would go even further when it comes to Iraq. I&#39;ve lost all faith in the idea of Iraq as a single nation and believe that the best, but far from perfect, solution is to let Iraq break apart into (at least) three sovereign nations. Rather than let Iran gradually absorb the entire country politically and religiously, limit their influence to the part of present-day Iraq which would become a Shi&#39;ite nation -- let&#39;s face it, Iran has already won that propaganda battle. Also, by letting the Kurds in the north form their own country, we could count on their continued support and friendship in the future, whereas pulling out without condition would surely sour the Kurds on America. There are certainly huge problems involved in terms of deciding where to draw the borders exactly, but compared to the carnage and barely suppressed anarchy in Iraq today, it seems like the lesser of two evils. I&#39;m convinced democracy has zero chance of survival in the Iraq of today. The way I see it, democracy has a greater chance of taking hold in at least one of those three new nations (Kurdistan). All that&#39;s happening now is that civilian Iraqis, coalition troops and foreign contractors are dying because the idiot prince in the White House and his heinous cabinet either refuse to admit their mistakes or really think all this shit is worth the fat contracts. One thing is certain, though, and that is that they neither understand nor give a shit about the unbelievable damage they&#39;ve inflicted on America&#39;s reputation, authority and governing ideals.

Well, let&#39;s not establish that little potential fireball, shall we? The only allies the Kurds have are the Israelis. And if they form their own soverign nation, you can bet Turkey will be invading from the north. Sorry, this will not happen, not without another needless bloodbath.

The administration fucked up the planning for Iraq so badly. It started out to just topple Saddam (which I still think was the right thing to do), but then it turned into this detailed nation building with not enough regard for a whole host of cultural, religous, historical considerations. The best thing to come out of it all was how it changed Saudi Arabia. The Saudis didn&#39;t think the US had the will to do it, and one morning they woke up with 2 armored divisions on their doorstep. They shared TONS of valuable intelligence with us concerning what they knew about al-Qaeda, which I believe is why we have been able to thwart so many attacks since 9/11. There were so many good and respectable arguments not to go into Iraq, many I disagree with. Lets hope we learn from this because theres alot of BIG decisions comming down the pike.

Because at this point they&#39;ll do anything to gain membership to the EU. They&#39;ll rattle sabers a bit for the home crowd but they won&#39;t do a damn thing. Besides, they might even use their recognition of an independent Kurdistan as a guarantee of entry into the union. Oh, and I hate to break it to you, brokedick, but Israel and Turkey get along just fine.

...what&#39;s going to happen to the economies of the Gulf/Arab States when America (and the world) starts switching over to alternative fuels on a massive scale? Boy, talk about upsetting the global economic balance.

It&#39;s not often I let my inner hopeful idealist out to play. Especially here. Some very interesting points brought up. DoctorWho?: You may well be right about a head on between Israel and Iran being bloody due to the Iranians&#39; conviction. I&#39;d never discount that factor. I just suspect Israel would come out on top when the fighting was done, based in part on their affinity for skiled warfare and in part on their access to the best weapons and technology American money can buy from American contractors. I&#39;d put Israel up against pretty much any Arab nation in a fair fight and expect them to prevail eventually. Maybe I&#39;m overestimating them, but I have gained a tremendous respect for their unwillingness to lie down and quit. I&#39;d even go so far ads to say a fair fight between Israel and Iran might go some distance toward legitimizing thier claim on the land in the eyes of their neighbors. Nothing official, mind you. Call it the Middle Eastern equivalent of "street cred." Assuming, of course, the U.S. didn&#39;t have to actively intervene, which assumes none of Iran&#39;s anti-semitic neighbors joined in the fight. That said, I don&#39;t think a fair fight would happen in the Middle East between Israel and anyone if it weren&#39;t for the near certainty that the U.S. would clear its bench at the first sign of a third man in, so to speak. The longer we&#39;re floundering in Iraq, however, the less credible that threat/promise is and the more tenuous Israel&#39;s position in the region becomes. Our own refusal to say quit in this circumstance, while admirable from a certain perspective, is actually working against the message we&#39;re trying to send in the region and weakening the position of our ally while emboldening our enemies (not only there, but in North Korea...as their recent July 4th fireworks display proves). We are rapidly moving from becoming perceived by many in the world as a bully to being seen as a joke, and I can&#39;t imagine any of us wants that. Doc Pazuzu (Heh...here i am talking world politics with two doctors. Wouldn&#39;t mama be proud?): You make an intriguing suggestion and one I could wholly support under slightly different circumstances. While I agree with those who pointed out the potential dangers of a Turkish/Kurd clusterfuck under the three-nationed Iraq proposal, IF the U.S. were to reattain it&#39;s former perceived position of respected world peacekeeper (or global cooler, as my buddy Dalton might philosophize), I don&#39;t think we&#39;d see such a situation erupt. As has been pointed out, the Kurds have a friend in the Israelis, who are friends with the U.S. Right now, that means pretty much dick. But under the right circumstances, that could be enough to preserve the healthy if tense balance over there. And I think the division of Iraq would have to be agreed upon by the UN. If it came out of a unilateral U.S. edict, particularly under current conditions, it would just cause more resentment and further reinforce perception of America as current world blowhard.

I think the longer America stays in Iraq, the happier Ahmadinejad is because the nation is deteriorating as a whole under the occupation, insurgency and ethnic strife. When Iraq is reduced to an utter shambles and the coalition inevitably withdraws, Iran will all but annex the entire country, including its wealth and strategic position in the middle east. At the very least, Iran will control a third of Iraq, but only if the country is allowed to split apart into three nations (preferably under UN supervision, like Roland suggested). It&#39;s time for America to cut its losses and go home -- and actually rob Iran of some of the gains they&#39;re now in the process of serving them on a silver platter.

bitching about Bush&#39;s &#39;Islamic fascists&#39; remark in Green Bay today, maybe they should be a bit more hyped up in diming out the imams who are preaching a gospel of evil in their mosques, no?

every single one of the worlds problems can be traced back to the moment he ejaculated into lewinskis mouth and she wiped her lips on her skirt.....that is when all of this started.
9/11?? all clinton.....The current war in lebanon???Clinton clinton clinton.....vietnam..well he sat it out ..a who knows maybe if he had gone he could have single handedly turned the tide and we would have won that fucking thing so lets blame him for that too.It is all his fault.

Do you not even comprehend the depth of animosity the Turks have against their own Kurdish minorities? You think Turkey would embrace an independent Kurdistan to their south, occupying oil-rich land? Even the Neo-Cons at the National Review know this not to be the case. The US is desperately trying to hold the three major factions in Iraq together, because any independence declared by the Kurds would not only mean outright civil war, but an intervention by Turkey in northern Iraq. "Turkey won&#39;t do shit"? Stop dreaming. And yes, Israel and Turkey do cooperate economically. When did I say they didn&#39;t? But that relation could be severely strained if Israel backs an independent Kurdistan. The Israelis have already been seen training and supplying Kurds in the north. Just as US military personnel have testified to seeing Israelis at Abu Ghraib, presumably advising on methods of torture. The whole Iraqi invasion was a mess from the beginning, and now it has led to an expanding regional conflict. I don&#39;t even think Bush was cognizant of how this would play out - he just listed to the wrong advice, and all that advice came from the Neo-Con quarters of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Company.

I agree. I hope that the Gulf/Arab countries will be able to adapt because they really don&#39;t have a whole lot else going for them. With multiple cooperative agreements, I hope they can reinvest in their infrastructures, develop their trade options, and by doing so, modernize/liberalize their world view. And America really needs to get on the ball and turn this into a reality. I feel like we are really stagnant in our developmental energy policies. (Of course my wish is to have this stuff available NOW.) But if we don&#39;t take advantage of our assets, technologies, and research (both public & private), we stand a good chance of placing second to another country in the fuel/resources game: China. And I&#39;d like to not think that a country who sells the organs taken from executed prisoners or clubs 50,000+ dogs to death in a month is going to be the country that leads the way in alternative energy achievments.

Great points all around. Let&#39;s face reality - we have reached peak oil production. And everyone is scrambling for oil contracts to secure future supplies. America cannot secure oil rights by force, as is one of the motivations for the invasion of Iraq. They will blow up pipelines rather than let us siphon off their oil. Toyota and Honda have brought Hybrid technology and ultra-high fuel efficiency to market, at significant sales levels and affordable prices, within a decade. America can and should develop fuel-efficient and alternative fuel technologies. We need a change in leadership, one that will consider America&#39;s long-term health and self-sufficiency instead of pursuing the pipedream of &#39;American Empire&#39;.

They believe terrorists actually knocked down the towers whithout realising it was the Bush/New World Order regime who did it. Bin Laden is an actor trained by the CIA. Work it out, don&#39;t believe what you see on the news.

whether or not Turkey will be allowed into the EU. Human rights violations and the quesiness of the traditional European powers who are already unhappy with the expansion into the eastern bloc will hold them up. Doc Paz is right, as much as the turks loathe the kurds they will not jeopardise Eu membership.

He hated woodshop. He was always terrified of wood shavings getting down his shirt, making him itchy and shit. One time he got it in his head that someone would one day take a big clump and dump it on his head. This guy would always be looking over his shoulder, always with his back to the wall, always with his eye on the wood shavings - terrified that the day would come that he would suffer the humiliation and itch of someone dropping the lot on his head from behind. This is a true story, for the love of all that is proper I could not figure out why he then, one day, took it upon himself to pick up two handfulls of find wood shavings and proceed to put it on as many heads around him as he could. The man never came back to that class

I just can&#39;t help but feel a certain biased in your post. Mainly towards the USA & Israel. While being totally against anything Arab and UN. I&#39;m allowed to remain on the fence here, so lets not go putting words or thoughts into what I write, but it seems to me that all you&#39;re doing is calling for war, blood and destruction. What does it get you?

I may be naive, because I still liked Superman Returns. But an independent Kurdistan remains a pipedream. One reason why northern Iraq would be invaded by the Turks is because they will not allow the Kurds to take over the oil wealth of Kirkuk. And neither will the Shi&#39;ites allow this to happen either - please see today&#39;s headline where a mob of 50 Shi&#39;ites burned down President Talabani&#39;s office ... for a perceived critisim. Imagine what they would do if the Kurds declared independence. The Kurdish people are in a very precarious situation. To me, they are the equivalent of the Palestinians in Israel. Dare to declare their freedom or claim their prior land, and they will be slaughtered.

I know you&#39;re pretty much neutral in the whole debate but your perception is very keen on Anchorite&#39;s posts. I had previously seen him, and the 2 Docs as three-of-a-mind, but now, in this TB, I see that is not the case. The two Docs have very divergent views about the middle east, from Anchorite. Anchorite takes his queues solely from the Zionist view of perpetual war. Perpetual war is their official policy, one designed to keep Israel on a constant state of alert and fear, in order to keep their people&#39;s defenses up. One of the tools towards this end is constant provocation of its neighbors. The NeoConservative Zionists, who all have deep links with Israel and AIPAC, have brought the concept of perpetual war to America, via the Bush Administration. Now Bush has adopted the global war on terrorism as our own perpetual war. Everyone has agreed that this perceived war has no identifiable objective or sign of victory because its enemy is a tactic, a concept. The ultra-right-wing of the Republican party was planning this for quite a while, since the days of Newt Gingrich (who himself is a Zionist and has received strong backing from Israel). It is striking to see the disparity between the views posted by NoHubris & Nice Gaius, and those of Anchorite. After years of this war already, and now seeing it expand, it is clear America cannot allow itself to sink more into the quagmire.

Just wanted to know - are you a majority Republican voter or are you a majority non-voting American? Either way 75-80% of Americans helped RE-elect Dubya!!! I&#39;m a Londoner by-the-way, and like most of us I don&#39;t want to spend my life dodging the backlash from America&#39;s War Economy. The US has a military presence in most countries and since 1945 has been at war with over 100 countries. Which government is the only one so far to use nuclear weapons in combat? Which 2 cities were obliterated killing hundreds of thousands in a matter of seconds?

Why don&#39;t you just come out say what&#39;s really on your mind? The reason you oppose an independent Kurdistan has nothing to do with your fears of a Turkish invasion based on the preposterous idea that it would somehow rob them of oil. What really makes your dick itch is the idea of yet another Muslim country in the region having good relations with Israel, the existence of the latter considered illegal and amoral by you. In fact, I&#39;d wager you would rather see the entirety of Iraq fall to one extremist movement or the other (preferably Iran-backed), with all the additional suffering that would entail for the Iraqi people, than see a free, independent, Israel-friendly Kurdistan. Feel free to deny those accusations.

It is not I who opposes an independent Kurdistan. Since the first Gulf War, when Bush Sr. used the Kurds and then abandoned them to Saddam&#39;s retribution, I have felt that the US should support the Kurds by protecting them from external aggression. In fact, since the end of the first gulf war, the US (under Clinton) and England were in fact protecting them by imposing the northern no-fly zones. I don&#39;t have any opposition to an independent Kurdistan, but it is not a practical nor viable option for them, unfortunately. The Kurdish people are in a precarious situation. Not only would a declaration of independence provoke the Turks, but the Shi&#39;ites as well (most Kurds are Sunni). I think one option may be for the Palestinians to swap land positions with the Kurds. Establish a New Palestine in northern Iraq, and an independent Kurdistan in the occupied territories. The Kurds - a majority of whom are Muslim - do get along with Israel, and they would make for a friendly neighbor and could unite for mutual military cooperation for defensive purposes. I don&#39;t see the Kurds moving into Israel however, because Zionist Israelis have always envisioned their state as that of an exclusively Jewish State. Which is why the prospect of an Arab majority was so alarming to them back in the 90s, when projected population growth of the Arabs within Israel caused panic and a call for mass immigration to Israel as well as the policy of "transfer".

This is from Wikipedia. The issue of Kurdish Independence has nothing to do with Israel, Doc. It was not until the US and Israel realized, since the first Gulf War, that an alliance with the Iraqi Kurds would be somewhat mutually beneficial, that any active relationship was established ....... "More than 3,000 Kurdish villages in Turkey were virtually wiped from the map by the Turkey&#39;s security forces during 1980s and 1990s. As a result, more than 378,000 Kurdish villagers were forcibly displaced and left homeless see [43],[44] and [45]. Also see Report D612, October, 1994, "Forced Displacement of Ethnic Kurds"(A Human Rights Watch Publication)[46]).
In 1994 Leyla Zana (the first female Kurdish representative in the Turkey&#39;s Parliament), was charged for separatist speech and sentenced to 15 years in prison. At her inauguration as an MP, she reportedly identified herself as a Kurd. Amnesty International reported "She took the oath of loyalty in Turkish, as required by law, then added in Kurdish, &#39;I shall struggle so that the Kurdish and Turkish peoples may live together in a democratic framework.&#39; Parliament erupted with shouts of &#39;Separatist&#39;, &#39;Terrorist&#39;, and &#39;Arrest her&#39;" [47].
The Partiya Karker

What makes my dick itch has nothing to do with Middle East geo-politics. The real cause, I would rather not discuss on AICN. Ethnic Kurds are spread out throughout the Middle East. They comprise a full 20 to 30% of Turkey&#39;s total population. Any call for independence by the Iraqi Kurds will put all ethnic Kurds in the region in great jeopardy. And if you don&#39;t believe me when I tell you that if the Kurds do claim Kirkuk for their own, and Turkey and the Iranian Shi&#39;ites don&#39;t intervene, then please do the research. Kirkuk is a strong point of contention in the Kurdish question.

I think Anchorite&#39;s plea for help for Israel is a little one-sided. You cannot address Israel&#39;s position without also taking into account the genocide it is committing against the Palestinians. Right of survival does not engender the right to annihilate another race. Unless you are taking the Zionist position. There are many non- or anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis who take a pacifist approach, which is negotiation. That approach is less bloody and has a greater chance of success than the pro-war, provacative policies of the Zionists.

Brokebackcowboy - Just a point regarding Israel/Palestine, I would submit that we have not yet seen anything near genocide. I&#39;m not busting your balls here. I just think that term gets thrown around too easily whenever folks discuss this issue. Carry on.

Is Israel comitting "genocide" against all Arab inhabitants in the Holy Land, or just those in the occupied territories? If the former, I&#39;d like to know why Israel is bothering to pay for the health care (particularly maternal services) of non-Jewish citizens, when it really wants them all dead.

I take being called Anti-Semite as seriously as I do being called Brokedick. The Zionists co-opted the phrase Semitism for themselves, for propaganda purposes. Arabs are Semitic peoples. And Jews are not genetically homogeneous peoples. Sephardic Jews have more in common, genetically, with Palestinians than with Ashkenazi Jews! To equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism is one of society&#39;s most flagrant, but weak-kneed, smokescreens. Sorry to burst your racist bubble, Anchorite.

Talking to Anchorite reminds me lines from other Stone movies. "I&#39;m up to here in more nuts than a fruitcake!" and "We&#39;re through the looking glass, here, people. Black is white, and white is black. Now think, people, think!"

"There are many non- or anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis who take a pacifist approach, which is negotiation. That approach is less bloody and has a greater chance of success than the pro-war, provacative policies of the Zionists."
Is the Meretz Party Zionist? Hashomer Hatzair? The Kibbutzim?

"There are many non- or anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis who take a pacifist approach, which is negotiation. That approach is less bloody and has a greater chance of success than the pro-war, provacative policies of the Zionists."
Is the Meretz Party Zionist? Hashomer Hatzair? The Kibbutzim?

the fact that Israel is a Jewish nation that&#39;s upsetting brokeback in this situation, maybe it&#39;s what you yourself described in the post - "Has Israel acted poorly toward Palestinians? Yes. Do they treat them as second-class citizens? Yes." Genocide is an overstatement, I agree with that, but are we supposed to sit here and approve of everything Israel&#39;s government does? Of course not, I say! Their treatment of the Palestinians is something that should not be ignored. I am NOT against the existence of Israel or the people of Israel, I am against the actions the Israeli government has taken in certain situations, just as I am against many of the actions our own government has taken. America has done some terrible things in the name of defending our nation, for instance, invading a country under false pretenses. Because I think that doesn&#39;t mean I don&#39;t think America has a right to defend itself, just like I don&#39;t think Israel doesn&#39;t have a right to defend itself (double negatives, but whatever). Brokeback doesn&#39;t hate the Jewish people (do you Brokeback?) and neither do I. I take issue with the actions of the government, not the people. Anti-semite is a very loaded word, and you&#39;re tossing it around like candy at a parade.

...by Nasrallah(Hizbollah):" If they (Jews) all gather in Israel it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." Doesn&#39;t THAT sound like a man with a dream of genocide? Not to mention numerous quotes from the Iranian prez which I&#39;m sure your aware of. Or are you gonna pull a Mike Wallace on me?

I would agree with you to a certain extent (about Jews at large faring no better with Hezbollah and Hamas, which is a travesty). But I would add another layer of distinction - Anti-Zionism. There are Zionist Jews and Zionist Gentiles. Although their ultimate goals are not necessarily in sync, their agendas and tactics are mutually compatible. There are Zionist Jews, and Non-Zionist Jews. They should not be lumped together, but unfortunately, and tragically, the Zionist policies have drawn fire to the non-Zionist Jews at large. Which is why it is imperative that non-Zionist Israelis do not allow the Zionists to shape the destiny of their country. I hope Anchorite doesn&#39;t read this post, as it completely shatters his simplistic views. See you guys later, I&#39;m off to see The Descent.

...since it blatantly shows how hollow your arguments are as well as how outrageous your double standards are. I especially liked your Wikipedia quote. Here&#39;s another quote for you: "It&#39;s incredulous that anyone would cite Wikipedia as Gospel, considering it&#39;s basically a medium for dueling propagandists, at least when it comes to political issues. You have to take any Wiki article with a grain of salt." ..... This was posted by you in the Harry WTC TB, in case you don&#39;t recall. I know I shouldn&#39;t be surprised since you basically equate republicans and all Israelis who believe in Israel&#39;s right to exist with nazis, but then post links to ultra-right wing Jewish zealot sites when it suits your very apparent agenda. I also really enjoyed your Kurdish/Palestinian switcheroo proposal since it also shows how little you care for either group&#39;s political/religious/historical attachment to geography, and that your crocodile tears for the Palestinians are nothing but a tool to discredit the existence of Israel. Show me a person who says "I believe in Israel&#39;s right to exist but have huge problems with some of their policies" yet doesn&#39;t attempt to drain the meaning of words like "genocide" and "zionism" or refer to crackpot theories which have Jews and nazis cooperating to facilitate the Holocaust, or defends other talkbackers who link to neo-nazi websites and I&#39;ll take that person seriously and consider him/her worthy of respect. You, on the other hand, have revealed yourself in several talkbacks to be nothing but thoroughly prejudiced against Jews and have thus lost all credibility in these discussions.

a dumb ass piece of shit. You just dont get it. If we are proactive before 9-11 people would have complained we react after it and people complain. Theres no winning.
I&#39;d vote for a 3rd term.
Awesome site http://tinyurl.com/pv8do

You really need to read the Harry WTC talkback to get a better idea of brokedick&#39;s tactics and agenda. It&#39;s like wading hip deep in shit at times, but brokedick is really laid bare by both his posts and the company he keeps.

but I haven&#39;t seen anything in them that would warrant him being called an anti-Semite. Mostly I take issue with your use of that term. Yes, Israel is in a horrible position, but we can&#39;t ever forget the citizens of these Arab nations that AREN&#39;T extremists, the ones who are oppressed by their government and, in some cases (Lebanon) being terrorized and killed by Israeli forces. There are more than two sides to this thing; the extremists and the Israeli forces, but then the civilians caught in the middle have the worst of it, and they are the ones we should all be concerned about. I&#39;m of the opinion that our support should be going to places where it will keep the human cost of this battle down; to the civilians in the form of food and shelter and safe places free from the bombs and bullets of both sides, not to Israel so they can bomb ever more of Lebanon. Does it make me and anti-Semite to have that position, one that doesn&#39;t support Israel&#39;s actions?

Absolutely not. But that&#39;s not what brokedick&#39;s doing. He&#39;s attempting to discredit Israel&#39;s right to exist by saying things like he&#39;ll only accept Israel&#39;s right to exist if the Palestinians agree to it. He also attempts to equate the idea of zionism (the establishment of a Jewish state in the middle east) with nazism and posts links to outrageous websites claiming that Jews collaborated with the nazis to bring about the Holocaust. The point of this? Well, since most of the world&#39;s Jews support Israel&#39;s right to exist, thus making them zionists, equating zionism with nazism means that there is no deifference between nazis and Jews and that anyone who supports Israel&#39;s right to exist is nothing but a nazi. See where this is leading?

Brokeback has been relatively tame on this thread. He never met a conspiracy thory he didn&#39;t love. Nor has he pulled out his Jews=Nazis rant yet. The shit storm that descended upon him was formidable to say the least.

I went back and read some of that stuff you told me to and he says some pretty bone-headed stuff. However, I&#39;m now moving away from my computer to go get ready for a little fiesta tonight . . . out.

Actually, I think you&#39;re wrong. I&#39;m convinced brokedick knows that zionists are nothing of the kind. He&#39;s just using the term and depleting it&#39;s meaning for the reasons I stated above. I don&#39;t think he believes even half of the shit he&#39;s spouting here. That&#39;s the difference between him and GingerTwit, who&#39;s stupid enough to believe anything, and zfisk/homewrecker, who is insane enough to believe anything.

I think that last classic post of his... where he went ballistic because he thought he exposed Docpazaus secret identity(s), thereby liberating all of AICN of his evil yoke...caused him to blow a gasket! I think he&#39;s still gibbering to himself in a corner somewhere.

You may be right, DoctorWho?. That post coupled with his last blog entry was a Classic AICN Meltdown. He&#39;s probably in some darkened corner having a Smeagol/Gollum-like debate with himself. He is in despair over the loss of his former AICN comrade brokeback: "Pazuzu is wicked, tricksy, FALSE!" "But brokebackcowboy is our friend..." "No, Precious! Brokeback IS Pazuzu!"

The Descent was pretty wicked. And Anchorite, I haven&#39;t read through your afternoon posts fully yet, but let&#39;s set something straight for the record. You called me a Hezbollah supporter early on in the Harry WTC TB. Why? Because I was criticizing Israel&#39;s policies. That&#39;s how the anal sex-with-sister tirade came in. I already told you once: You say something ridiculous, I come back with something equally ridiculous. So stop playing the victim. You are no angel, as is apparent in this and every other TB you participate in. Mori already pointed out your propensity to project your own perceptions on other people&#39;s commentary. It&#39;s beyond ridiculous how you and DocSpaz say things like "Why don&#39;t you say what&#39;s really on your mind" or "What you&#39;re really trying to say is ...". And the way you have been belittling TBers on this board by accusing them of hatred and racism is incredulous. Your Zionist, Israeli-centric mentality prevents you from looking at anything with any sense of objectivity. And DocSpaz ... I told you in a follow-up post regarding the Kurdish question to do additional research. No where did I say to rely solely on Wikipedia for information about the Kurds. As for you saying that I have no regard for the Palestinians and their attachment to their land ... fuck you very much. It was an off-the-cuff proposal of mine, whe discussing the Kurds and the Palestinians. If you truly felt that the Palestinians deserve their homeland in Old Palestine, then I suggest you propose negotiations with them instead of slaughter. I&#39;d say I spent the afternoon more productively watching The Descent than reading both your rants.

"to avoid civilian deaths" ... So sayeth the always wrong Anchorite. I have to correct you, son. Some Israeli Pilots are deliberately missing their targets because upon approach, they suspected that the targets they were given were civilian. You see, they have a conscience but their commanders, the ones in charge of the operation, are the bad seeds. Do I hate those pilots? No. I thank them for their humanity. And the anti-war movement in Israel is growing as this operation continues to escalate. Watch the polls in 2 to 3 weeks time.

I appreciate your putting me in the company of Hezbollah and Iran. I suppose one can&#39;t expect you to debate calmly and rationally without you resorting to hyperbole. Thanks, guys, once again, for reducing a TB into a pool of hysterical, paranoid and racist rants. Just when the conversation was finding its legs, you felt the need to sabotage it. Nice.

I don&#39;t need you of all people to lecture me on the Kurds. Your opinions are obvious as is your agenda, as demonstrated by your use of language as a tool of ideological attrition. Once again it&#39;s interesting and illuminating to see how you sidestep every accusation leveled against you by feigning indignation (shades of GingerTwit) and declining to debate the points brought up. If you have any balls or spine at all you&#39;ll at least comment or try to disprove my assertion as to why you use language of a certain type in your "debating". You&#39;re nothing but a sleazy, poorly-disguised anti-semite.

You do need someone to lecture you on the Kurds. You are so ill-informed on the Kurdish people that you would suggest they do something that would put themselves at great risk. You may not like the fact that I&#39;m the one pointing out the dangers in your position, but hey, you didn&#39;t get to choose your teachers back in grade school, but they taught you nonetheless.

I have no doubt whatsoever that I know vastly more about the Kurds than you do, not to mention about Turkey, NATO and the EU. You have displayed a grave lack of knowledge regarding Turkey&#39;s (and the Kurds&#39;) priorities and the pressure which the EU, NATO and the United States is capable of exerting on her. I wonder how many Kurds in northern Iraq would be opposed to the establishing of an independent Kurdistan? Your only response to my accusation that you&#39;d rather see an Iran-dominated Iraq is that zionists want a Muslim-free Israel, which besides being irrelevant, is laughable judging by the ethnic make-up of the country. You just don&#39;t want to see another Muslim Israel-friendly country in the region.

Do you want to know why I won&#39;t respond to any of your accusations of anti-Semitism? If you do, read on. The reasons are 2. 1: I do not hate Jewish people. 2: People who throw out charges of anti-Semitism willy-nilly, the way you fanatics are, actually foment hatred of Jewish people. And I am not so naive to fall for tricks like yours. Sorry, it doesn&#39;t work on me. Try Mel Gibson.

Ah, your predictable weapon of choice: feigned indignation. I only apply the term anti-semite when it&#39;s appropriate, like when I encounter one such as you. The true reason you won&#39;t respond to the accusations is because you&#39;ve got nothing to respond with, brokedick. I&#39;ve fully exposed how your tactics work and what your objectives are. Instead of taking the debate (which you would lose in any event) you shout about "hyperbole" and pretend to be above it all while calling supporters of Israel&#39;s right to exist "zionazis" left and right and saying how much you want to fuck our sisters in the ass. That&#39;s what I call integrity.

The issue of the Kurds has nothing to do with Israel, other than that Israelis are arming and training the Kurds in northern Iraq. If this leads to the Kurds declaring independence, then Israel will indeed lose one of their &#39;friendly Muslim&#39; countries - Turkey. I&#39;m so sure you know so much more about the Kurds than I do, but just to supplemnt your vast wealth of knowledge, please read this article: http://tinyurl.com/nphoa . Should the Kurds declare independence and take over Kirkuk outright, their ONLY defense is the US Occupation. When the US leaves Iraq, then pay heed to the last line in the article.

How can anyone debate you civilly, when in your own words, your opponent "would lose anyway". Because when you are actually faltering in a debate, you sabotage the debate by trying to discredit your opponent. Why don&#39;t you run for office? And the funny thing about Zionists is this: If someone who disagrees with them is Gentile, then they are anti-Semitic. If they are Jewish, then they are Self-Hating Jews. You see, fanatics.

You deserve to be discredited because you are a sleazy, disingenuous anti-semite which has been proven on these boards time and again. You refuse to address the accusations because they are true and you simply lack the intellectual and moral ammunition required to do so.

...for admitting that you would indeed lose such a debate if you had the spine to engage in one. I&#39;m off to bed now, so I&#39;ll leave the continued pummeling of your sad self to my equally capable if not superior fellow talkbackers who dwell in more appropriate time zones.

I can see why your poltical acumen regarding the Kurds is so lacking. If you read my post correctly, I already answered your question. The Kurds&#39; only defense from Turkey is the US. Will the US be staying in Iraq indefinitely? I don&#39;t know the answer for sure, but if I were the Kurds, I wouldn&#39;t bet the future on it.

On August1st I went out to eat and took my camera. I saw a plane flying by. took a pix but the sun didn&#39;t let me see if i got it or not. the next day. i saw the pix and i got the plane. nothing special. then i got bored and started duplicating the planes and added a lens flare. saved it. didn&#39;t think too much about it. now this happened with the foiled attack with 12 planes. i added 15, but still it&#39;s weird. if you don&#39;t believe me check the date of the photo. http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/1474/aug1st17xa4.jpg

I&#39;d be more concerned with Gingertwit and Homewrecker having my back. Thanks for your concern though. I was wondering what you thought of all the faked photos of poor Lebanese "casualties" and erroneous death tolls being retracted by the AP and such. (you claim to be well-informed,so I assume you know darn well about what it is I speak)Here&#39;s a question:If Israel is so obviously such a dispropotionate, bloodthirsty,murderous,genocidal, savage beast...why is it necessary to fake the evidence?

What faked photos? Do you mean these faked photos? http://tinyurl.com/pxnxj ... Israel, The Dove of Peace. As for anyone &#39;having my back&#39;, I don&#39;t need others to back me up. Unlike your pitiful little band (Copyright - Emperor Palpatine), I don&#39;t need cheerleaders to get my point across. Now go clean your pom-poms.

It&#39;s funny that you quote Palpatine, I&#39;m actually just taking a break from watching Return Of The Jedi with my daughter! Sigh- I guess you depend soley on the nightly news for your info...it&#39;s no wonder you ill prepared to answer. That or you choose to NOT ANSWER again. I&#39;ve currently paused the dvd on ewoks worshiping C-3PO...I&#39;ll link you the goods afterwards. Anybody else here more informed know what I&#39;m refering to?

"...it is you who are mistaken, about a great.many.things" I can&#39;t quite believe you haven&#39;t heard this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y-5fwppzGQ This is a nice,pithy summary of just some of the horseshit comming out of the lazy mainstream media unable/unwilling to police their own. Oh, there&#39;s much more...but I don&#39;t believe in clobbering people with links and/or long posts if I can help it.

Your quite the demagogue. You think by showing me graphic photos you will somehow SHOCK me into agreeing with you? I asked a direct question to you...you responded to me with... A QUESTION(?). Docpazuzu has called you out on that MANY times already...I thought I&#39;d just state the obvious. I can post about 1000 photos showing the horrors of war and torture also. And I&#39;m sure your well aware of the controversy over that poor little boys death too http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Durrah#Controversy But hey, I&#39;ll even grant you that one because at the end of the day, that&#39;s a tragedy no matter how you slice it. Try to grasp this...The choices we face in the world today involve risk and discomfort, the unpredictable and the unforeseen, the brutal and the bloody. When filmed 24-7 and beamed into our living rooms, it disturbs your leisure and forces upon on hard truths about the tragic complexity of life, truths we&#39;d rather forget about. It&#39;s very sweet that you believe your "sensitivity" to these issues trumps everyone elses hard thought out considerations...as if everyone but you is a heartless,brutal savage. Read some Winston Churchill fo Christ&#39;s sake.

You make that sound like it means nothing, brokedick. If your grasp of American and EU influence over Turkey doesn&#39;t extend beyond the idea of US troops on the ground in Iraq, then it proves beyond any doubt exactly how ignorant you are of the issue. However, we both know that you DO realize what the situation is, but that you simply HATE the idea of another Muslim country being friendly with Israel. By the way, you STILL haven&#39;t denied that you&#39;d rather see an Iran-dominated Iraq rather than a three nation solution -- or is that just another one of my little "tricks" which you aren&#39;t "na

You&#39;re definately on top of your game this time around. Everyone reading this (and there are people reading this) can fully see how rational you approach these boards. As for Dicpusoozer and Dr. Who. They&#39;re one and the same. Dr. Who just made a post almost word for word what Spazusu wrote to me once before. So sorry i don&#39;t have the links. but fear not, Pazuzu has the links. He&#39;ll post them all. Believe me, he&#39;s going to be onto me faster than shit off a shiny shovel. Achorite, you&#39;re stupid ass was OWNED this talkback. Before Mori even responded i was shocked to see the same bullshit projections being put on him that I and others have endured for ...... what is it, decades now? You bunch are nothing but Zion sympathisors, Agressive war appologists and spin doctors. Stop kidding yourselves, EVERYONE knows it. Now Marvel as Pazuzu discredits me with both things i said. but before you believe everyhting the dumb fucker says, know this --- I advocate death and war on NO ONE.

[/QUOTE]The choices we face in the world today involve risk and discomfort, the unpredictable and the unforeseen, the brutal and the bloody. When filmed 24-7 and beamed into our living rooms, it disturbs your leisure and forces upon on hard truths about the tragic complexity of life, truths we&#39;d rather forget about. It&#39;s very sweet that you believe your "sensitivity" to these issues trumps everyone elses hard thought out considerations...as if everyone but you is a heartless,brutal savage.[/UNQUOTE] ..... My thoughts run along similar lines every time the Zionists drag the Holocaust out of the closet for their self-serving propaganda purposes. As if no one has suffered more greatly than them?

It was Reuters who retracted pictures. And they retracted the pictures from 1 photographer. Repeat: 1 photographer. In any case, we have live video and pictures from hundreds of other sources, so the truth is still there for the rest of us to see it. Maybe no one can be as proficient at propaganda as the Israelis, since they&#39;ve been at it for much longer. Practice makes perfect. Maybe the Lebanese need to pay off Fox and CNN so they can get some embeds, too. And I didn&#39;t post that link to shock you. Pictures like that are unshockable to apologists like you. Someone like you can easily dismiss the murder of a father and child in each other&#39;s arms, because they are Palestinians, and for no other reason. I hope you enjoyed ROTJ.

In that article, the Kurdish general was dismissive of the notion of a Turkish invasion precisely because, at the time the article was written in 2005, there were 150,000 US troops in Iraq. Those troops will not be there forever. Once the US leaves Iraq, the Turks will do whatever they deem necessary to stop the Kurds from declaring independence and taking control of Kirkuk. Like I already said, repeatedly before, I would like to see the Kurds have their own nation. I already addressed the issue, as others have too, with you. Your argument lies, not that you wish the Kurds to be an independent people with their own homeland, but that, should they form their own nation, they would be an Israeli ally. That is not to their benefit, but to yours. Maybe the EU can indeed pressure Turkey into accepting an independent Kurdistan. But given the historical precedents of the Turkish/Kurdish/Shi&#39;ite relationships, I&#39;d say the Kurds better test the waters a long time before diving in.

You neglected the fact that the Turkish general said that they would respect the result of democratic elections regarding Kirkuk no matter the outcome. You also obviously have zero grasp of MODERN Turkish politics and the reality of their relationship to the EU as well as the weight with which America would lean on them regarding Kurdistan. As for your assertion that I&#39;d like to see an Israel-friendly Muslim country in the Middle East -- of course I would. Only an enemy of peace would have it any other way. However, I consider it much more important to stop the bloodshed in Iraq and bring the troops home and the only way I can see that happening is if it&#39;s divided into three states, one of which might have a fighting chance to achieve democracy. The problems involved with hammering out the details concerning natural wealth are fucking NOTHING compared to the suffering a theocratic state held together by Iran&#39;s iron fist would entail.

The "terrorist&#39;s" want you to die. The idea of freedom of Any kind is a bad idea in their eyes. Women are lower class than rats. If a woman trips on a rock and her ankle shows, they stone her to death because she has feed their lusts, wherefor she is evil. They want the world back into the middle ages; without electricity, clean water and food so you can never rise against them. Any technology is an abomination except what they can use to kill you. The only peace they want is to wipe out your city or town and move into your house. They will only stop when they are dead.

"Israel provoking its neighbors? Are you serious? The only way Israel COULDN&#39;T "provoke" its neighbors would be for it not to friggin&#39; exist!"
My God how can you say that?
What do you call systimaticly going in to Palestinian Territories and blowing up houses and Neighbourhoods (all in the name of fighting terror)then demolish the few buildings what are left (sometimes only giving families 15 minutes to get out of their houses). They then rebuild new houses and neighbourhoods where only Jews can live. Farmers are being robbed of their lands (Uprooting ackers Olive Trees)So that they have no means of making a living. Taking over natural water supplies and Strategic points in the countryside. Making it so hard to have a normal life, having to wait for hours in line to enter you own village. Curfews that sometimes last for days! I think that Israelis have a right to live their life but not at the cost of others... Like I said in a other post caling Hizbollah a terrorist group is simplifying the matter... I do not condone their bombing of israel and suicide bombings, but I can understand that some people think that is the last thing that they can do in this matter.
Isreal has one of the most Sophisticated armies of the world shooting at childeren throwing stones! And what your News outlets never care to tell is that those kids throwing stones at the Israeli soldiers are on their own land.
The Israeli WAR on TERROR is nothing more that a COLONIAL WAR the Palestinian territories have become smaller AND wil get smaller if Israel have their way.

i was among the "TOO SOON!!!" crowd. but ended up catching this film opening weekend due to the company i keep. i was not at all excited and dreading what i thought would be a blatant attempt to jerk tears and strike heart chords. but i was shocked to find myself moved by this movie. i think everyone (and we are right in doing so) would like to have things like they were before 9-11. and we need to try to get the world back to that place. but i fear too often we hope that simply putting the tragedies of that day out our mind will help to erase the effects it has had on our world. in doing so we are wrong. we cannot forget. to do so would betray the lives lost and neglect those who still seek to destroy us out of jealousy and hatred. the world changed that day. the rules changed. life may never be the same unless we do something to resolve it. we may disagree on how to go about it. but we must be unified in our desire to bring peace back to our country. and we have to remember the eleventh of september. and i admit to being one who had forgotten. and this movie helped remind me why i was wrong to try to forget.

I was reading an article a few weeks back regarding Irael&#39;s proposed map that would leave the Palestinians less than 20% of the territory they once called home. The incredible shrinking Palestine indeed. So you&#39;re right about

While I do support the notion of a Palestinian state comprised of Gaza and the West Bank, I do hope you know that the West Bank used to belong to Jordan (who captured and absorbed it in 1948) before it was occupied by Israel in 1967 after the Six-Day War. King Hussein relinquished all claims to it in 1988.

when in all actuallity no one is talking about the movie here. ROBOTEER i love you and every conservative bone in your body. JAY JEW i bet your a lonely little child sitting in your rents&#39; basement wishing someone would show you attention. sorry you have to go to such extremes. i hope god gives you a life soon. and as a conservative, i would like to prepose a question. if GEORGE W BUSH is so stupid (and i think we will all agree he is far from the sharpest knife to sit in the oval office) how could a dumb@$$ like that be behind 9-11? not just the attacks but the coverup? i do like W (i know he&#39;s pretty stupid sometimes and people from anywhere but texas have a hard time understanding what he&#39;s saying) but i like him none the less. i don&#39;t think he was the best choice to lead america through the trials of the past five years but i believe he is far better that the alternatives. i think the real redeeming quality in bush is that he does what he feels is right. i know that isn&#39;t highly valued in american society today. but that&#39;s what he does. he doesn&#39;t listen to polls, or news anchors, or AICN talkbackers. he does what he thinks is right. maybe we don&#39;t agree. but isn&#39;t that what a leader should do? is do what he thinks is best for his followers? even if what he feels is based on intel thats worth crap? even if what he feels makes no sense to us? even if he can&#39;t pronouce simple one and two syllable words? i&#39;d like to think so. don&#39;t hate on bush. he&#39;s not the bad guy. the terrorist are. muslims aren&#39;t the bad guys. people from the middle east are not the bad guys. the bad guys are those douche bags who want to kill us and f**k our country up as bad as theirs is. sorry i&#39;m such a conservative bush lover. please don&#39;t hate me too much.

How are the Palestinians to build an independent state (when all is said and done) on about 12% of land, since Israel will occupy an additional 8% of the territory that was promised to Palastine? And considering that they (Israel) wants peace, won&#39;t this latest partition proposal piss off the Hamas-ran Palastinian government more so? I&#39;m kinda familiar with the 1947 Partition drawn up by the U.N. which divided Palestine into two states - one for the Arabs (44%) and the Jews (54.5%), but over the the past 60 years, how can anyone justify the lost of so much land and not expect the Palestinians to not get pissed?

I don&#39;t agree with either allowing settlements on the West Bank or building a wall on Palestinian territory. I even think the Palestinians should be allowed to have part of Jerusalem, but the fact remains that the Hamas government won&#39;t be satisfied with merely the 1947-48 borders. They have clearly stated numerous times that they aim to wipe out Israel entirely. I understand the frustration of the Palestinians regarding Israeli policies in the occupied territories, but Israel CAN&#39;T be expected to try to talk to an organization which desires her destruction.

Despite the claims of terrorist organizations,(and people like Brokedick)... Israel&#39;s current two-front war is not just about land. After all, Hezbollah and Hamas fired rockets from Lebanon and Gaza well after Israel had withdrawn from both places.
Indeed, if sacred Arab ground were the driving force of the Middle East crisis, then surely Syria itself would now be willing to risk a shooting war over the all important Israeli-occupied Golan Heights . Meanwhile, Cairo is still perhaps the nexus of virulent Arab anti-Semitism, even though Israel finished handing over Sinai to Egypt in 1982. So, if the most recent war in Lebanon and Gaza is not about land per se, then whence arises the elemental desire to destroy Israel ?
The answer boils down to Islamists feeling their reputation is at stake. Words like "honor" and "pride" are evoked

Don&#39;t play it like there aren&#39;t any fanatics in Israel calling for the destruction of Arabs, too. There are fanatics on all sides. "100 Arab lives are not worth 1 Jew&#39;s finger" is a common refrain heard in Israel. Talk about being provacative. Which explains a lot about Israel&#39;s indiscriminate attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. Israel is not innocent in this bloodshed. It is quite guilty, in fact.

Why was it necessary for 1 photographer to photoshop his pictures? I don&#39;t know the answer to that, because (1) he hasn&#39;t explained his reasons, and (2) I am not that photographer. But if you want me to hazard a guess, I&#39;d say he did it because he felt that a more dramatic picture might help bring to light the plight of the victims he encountered. Perhaps he felt that he could help those victims even if it meant to compromise his journalistic intergrity. Still, the fudged work of 1 photographer does not in any way diminish the scope of the destruction Israel has wrought on Lebanon. The people Israel has killed, nor the people Hezbollah has killed. I hope this latest ceasefire agreement works out, but considering that Israel has just intensified its push to the Litani River, I doubt it truly desires a ceasefire.

I agree with both your points. Personally, I don&#39;t see Gaza and the West Bank as a viable Palestinian state, since the two territories are not contiguous, with Israel dividing them. How would a fledgling state like that be sustainable by the Palestinians when they have to cross Israel to get from one side to the other? The Palestinians are entitled to a more equitable division of land. And Anchorite&#39;s description of the Balfour Declaration is yet another fabrication of history. Please do your own research, but know that the Palestinian people agreed initially to Jewish immigration, but had no say, whatsoever, when Lord Balfour and the Zionists suddenly declared that Palestine was now Israel, and the drive to expel all Palestinians began. The Balfour Declaration was also a complete betrayal of agreements made with King Faisal. The whole damned thing was a ruse.

On the subject of the Kurds, your optimism of a peaceful establishment of an independent Kurdistan is about as reliable as that of the NeoCons when they said the occupation of Iraq would be a "cakewalk". See where I&#39;m going with that? You quoted the part in the article where the Turkish general said that if the people of Kirkuk endorse the election, then no problem exists. But what you do not know, because you are so dangerously ignorant of the Kurdish people, is that Kirkuk also has a large Turkomen population, who oppose Kirkuk being controlled by the Kurds. No endorsement is forthcoming, and this General Basburg knows it. That is why he was free to say what he said. Here is the important part of the article you should have read more carefully: "The Turkish military has sounded warnings about any Kurdish control of Kirkuk. "We have repeatedly said that such a situation may make the election results in Kirkuk disputable and make it almost impossible to find a fair and lasting solution for Kirkuk," Gen. Ilker Basbug, the second most powerful military leader in Turkey told a news conference this week." .... Again, I do oppose an independent Kurdistan for the reasons I have already stated vis-a-vis their own plight, but it would be suicidal for them to attempt to create one. I certainly didn&#39;t want an Iranian controlled Iraq, but it wasn&#39;t ME who endorsed the invasion of Iraq. It was the fucking NeoConservative Zionists that created this shitstorm. The same bunch of fanatical lunatics who befriended and relied upon the advice of Ahmed Chalabi ... who is himself a seeming double-agent with Iran. God, can we please have some sane, intelligent people running our foreign policy?

You&#39;re an evil fuck who wants to kill people? That makes you just as bad as terrorist. No one wants America to get attacked again. Because it&#39;ll be bad for all the world. My country has an itchy trigger finger and there&#39;s only so much will take. We could start WWIII. So rather than wish America gets attacked again. You should be wishing for peace. Everyones lives is at stake here.

You sure can dish out the name-calling but your sanctimony starts to ring out as soon as you get some of your own medicine right back. Stop playing the victim, Anchorite. You are a liar. Your Balfour explanation was, is and always will be a lie. A fabrication not of your own making, but one you got from your handbooks. Still, you&#39;re guilty of intentionally perpetuating that lie. So quit crying already. Boo-fucking-hoo, poor Anchorite.

it reminds me of dogs chasing their tales only
with each circle, many people die in the process.
everybody dies.
nothing is solved or healed.
no one&#39;s point is understood or attempted to even be
understood.
so how is anyone "winning" this?
i&#39;m not impressed by either "side".
it&#39;s just inspiring me not to care about either "side".
i care about the people who just want to carry on with their lives.
it&#39;s really difficult to view this and not find it
impressively stupid.

This is getting boring. You still act as if the US and the EU don&#39;t exist. The alarmist nature of your posts reflects your unwillingness to take into account any type of US pressure that can be brought on Turkey vis-a-vis Kurdistan. You have also blatantly ignored Turkey&#39;s desperate attempts to become an EU member. Furthermore, you don&#39;t even entertain the notion that deals could be struck regarding oil supplies to Turkey and the status of the Turkomen population. You hide behind concern for the Kurds&#39; welfare but your lack of nuanced debate regarding the Kurds and Turkey shows that you&#39;re either hideously ignorant of current affairs or choose to ignore them because combatting a free Kurdistan better serves your overriding agenda, that of equating the majority of the world&#39;s Jews with Nazis.

"I certainly didn&#39;t want an Iranian controlled Iraq, but it wasn&#39;t ME who endorsed the invasion of Iraq." ....... Nice one. I love how you phrased that. Especially since it&#39;s designed to appease those who think you want an Iran-dominated Iraq, while not denying it at all. All it in actuality means is "I didn&#39;t mind Saddam running Iraq, but now that the country is in chaos..." You actually didn&#39;t answer the accusation at all, which doesn&#39;t surprise me as you&#39;ve done nothing in several talkbacks but ignore the gigantic holes punched in your arguments and refused to answer repeated point blank questions. When pressed, you refer to them as "tricks" that you&#39;re not "na

There&#39;s a difference between posting about anal sex and posting repeatedly about anal sex while using the very same elaborate and tasteless vernacular. You are the previously mentioned troll and it&#39;s only a matter of time before you&#39;re banned again for the very same reasons as previously. Cunt.

65% of your post was pure uninformed speculation of the Turkish response to an independent Kurdistan. The remaining 35% was your groundless boasting that you know more than I do about the Turkish-Kurdish situation. Okay, I will cite 2 articles for you. This first one: http://tinyurl.com/qyy43 is a recent, actual "EU Draft Report on Turkey&#39;s Progress Towards Accession". Please pay attention to the list of actions being negotiated with Turkey, those being the fair treatment of Kurds in the southeast region. Freedom of launguage, further democratization, economic development. See if you can find anything even close to calling for Turkey to recognize Kurdish Independence. This second article: http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=12972 was written 4 days ago, by Kurdish media. It reports how Turkey and Iran is cooperating to suppress the PKK (Independence/Separatist Movement). It&#39;s a long, &#39;nuanced&#39; article, so please don&#39;t quote out of context. The whole of the article must be read to more fully understand the position Turkey is taking on Kurdistan, not to mention Cypress. Bottom line is this. The EU can force Turkey into more humane treatment of the Kurdish people, but it will not force them to recognize an independent Kurdistan. A three-state solution for the Kurds puts those people in grave jeopardy from not only Turkey, but also Iran and the Shi&#39;ites. Perhaps the way around it is to exclude Kirkuk from a Kurdistan map, but I believe this would not happen for the following reasons: the Kurds claim it as their historical land, it is a multi-ethnic region that is home too a vast number of ethnic Turks, Turkey and Iran will not allow it, and the US would not allow it, because Kirkuk will then fall into Iranian hands. May I ask you a question? On what basis do you make your assumptions and speculations? Because I have never heard such speculation as yours before. Except from the Zionists. Perhaps the reason you are so adamant about an independent Kurdistan is precisely because Israel did want to reopen a pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa? Like this article from 2003, which outlined how Israel needs oil from Kirkuk and how the situation would be untenable if Israel did? http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0423/p11s01-coop.html

Ah, you see Doc. You accuse me of being complacent towards the Kurds when in fact the opposite is true. Everything you have suggested they do puts them at great peril, yet conveniently serves a purpose for Israel. But for a Zionist, it&#39;s an experiment worth pursuing, right? If it works, oil flows from Kirkuk to Haifa. If it doesn&#39;t, the Kurds get slaughtered by the Turks and Iranian Shi&#39;ites, and Israel is unchanged by the attempt. That is sickening beyond reason.

Obviously you know next to nothing of what&#39;s demanded of member states in the EU. You&#39;re assuming that "not recognizing" a country is the same as "invading" a country. Turkey doesn&#39;t HAVE TO recognize a free Kurdistan on its borders, but the second it invades said country, it will be in violation of the most basic of requirements for EU membership and will be out on its ass within a relatively short time. Turkey isn&#39;t going to pretend to agree to everything and then violate every point of its membership once it&#39;s a member. If you were GingerTwit, I&#39;d say use your fucking head, but you already know very well that this is the case. Turkey is caught between a rock and a hard place. In the choice between EU membership and all its benefits, and grudgingly allowing a Kurdish nation on its borders (while possibly not even recognizing it), Turkey is going to choose what&#39;s best for it. It&#39;s going to hurt, but they&#39;ll pay that price for EU membership.

...but Turkey as a EU member state WON&#39;T attack Kurdistan, and you know full well that an Iran-dominated Iraq most likely WILL slaughter the Kurds. You&#39;d have us believe that the Kurds would be safer from Iranian Shi&#39;ites in such an Iraq rather than within its own sovereign borders.

I&#39;m pleased, though not surprised, to see that you haven&#39;t denied your attempts to equate the majority of the world&#39;s Jews with Nazis, as your continued particular use of the word "Zionist" demonstrates.

I can see you didn&#39;t even bother to read the 3 articles I cited, given the speed with which you replied. But that&#39;s okay. The articles don&#39;t fit with your Zionist views so you&#39;re free to ignore them. They are more for other TBers so they can see through your Oil for Israel agenda.

If you bothered to even read the article by Kurdish Media, you&#39;d know that the Turks and Iranians are already cooperating to suppress the PKK. The article is 4 days old, Doc. Why you be so ignorant?

I couldn&#39;t care less if they&#39;re trying to suppress the PKK as it&#39;s a terrorist organization. It actually is possible to support Kurdish independence without supporting every single organization devoted to that purpose.

At your Zionista thinking. If the PKK were suppressed, how exactly do you think the Kurds would be able to sustain and defend a proposed independent Kurdistan? Paper promises of EU membership? You&#39;re delusional.

because I pay attention to words and context. You must be one of those speed-readers who just scan and pick up key words so you can get through as quickly as possible. Which explains why you are so out of your league in all your discussions.

Like everyone else -- with a trained army. Part of any agreement regarding a free Kurdistan would certainly call for the PKK to abandon terrorist methods, which they in all liklihood would do if they want a voice in any future government, as you well know. I&#39;d tell you to go read up on Turkey and the EU, but I&#39;m suspecting more and more that you&#39;re quite aware of the true state of the matter but just choose to ignore it in public because that better suits your overriding agenda of equating the vast majority of the world&#39;s Jews with Nazis.

that all ALL wolrd decisions somehow have a Israel alterior motive behind it is really something. Presuming that Docpazuzu&#39;s arguement hinges on the the hopes that "oil flows from Kirkuk to Haifa" reveals the heart of a true paranoid conspiracy nut. Its astonishing that you attribute so much malevolence to a state comparativley the size of a dime on a football field. And the fact of that state thives as a liberal democracy amidst dysfuntional nations just burns your ass. I know it burns theirs.

Not ALL the world&#39;s decisions involve Zionist motives, but when it comes to the Middle East, nearly all certainly do. Presuming DocSpaz&#39;s argument hinging on its benefit towards Israel is not being conspiratorial, it is being astute. Israel is not a liberal democracy. It is an apartheid state that assigns second/third class citizenship on its Arab population. And it is committing atrocities against the Palestinians, and now the Lebanese. Now back to the Kirkuk-to-Haifa pipeline issue: here is the article once again: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0423/p11s01-coop.html .... Choice quotes: "Israel&#39;s National Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky was quoted in a March 31 Ha&#39;aretz article saying that Israeli and Jordanian officials would soon meet to discuss reviving the line. Built by the British in the 1940s, the line crossed west from Iraq through Jordan to British-ruled Palestine (today&#39;s Israel)." .... AND ... "The idea is economically tempting for Israel and some of its friends, especially those whose firms might profit from such a project. Oil-poor Israel, MEES reports, wants high-quality Kirkuk crude oil for its Haifa refinery." .... So please don&#39;t tell me that the Israeli arming and support of the Kurds has nothing to do with oil for Israel. I&#39;d love to see how strong DocSpaz and the Zionists&#39; support for an indepedent Kurdistan would be if an agreement is struck guaranteeing that NO pipeline would be rebuilt to Haifa from Kirkuk.

The concept of maybe having a pipeline between trade friendly cooperative nations is not a "dastardly plot". Depending on oil from nations who think you are subhuman... and have stated out loud to the world community that they are hell-bent on your extintion...is probably not a sound business venture eh?

...DocWho -- simple, short and to the point. It also shows how flawed brokedick&#39;s argumentation is. In his world view, ANY actions taken by Israel -- diplomatic or otherwise -- are part of an evil plot to kill and drink the blood of Muslim babies.

Oh no, I think you&#39;re getting off-message there, Doc. You need to get back on the Pazuzu "Independent Kurdistan for the sake of the Kurdish people, it has nothing to do with Israel" message. I hope the Kurds are smart enough not to trust Israel to put them into a position of grave peril. God knows the Bush Administration wasn&#39;t.

...I&#39;ll answer your question, which is more than you&#39;ve been willing to do during most of this and other talkbacks. My support for a free Kurdistan would be undiminished by the absence of the pipeline since that aspect of it is no more than a bonus rather than the actual reason for creating such a state. Israel will get its oil anyway, like it has so far. It&#39;s interesting how you neglect to attach any importance or sinister machinations behind Jordan&#39;s support for the very same pipeline. Just another element of your ongoing attempt to equate the vast majority of the world&#39;s Jews with Nazis.

...brokedick&#39;s lack of granting the Kurds themselves any say in the matter. They&#39;re just poor misguided folks who are the pawns of Israel and America and would NEVER think to ask for a state of their own. No, it&#39;s Israel and America putting them "into a position of grave peril."

...It&#39;s way past my bedtime so I&#39;ll leave the continued intellectual flogging of brokedick to you for a few hours. I don&#39;t think I&#39;ll miss much other than the usual "Zionists! Zionists! Zionists!" schtick. Have at it.

What else could you say when your whole faked, insincere and disingenuous concern for the Kurdish people was utterly debunked? You were so blatantly ignorant of the Kurdish people, it was obvious since your very first post about them. Turkey and the EU ... my ass. I&#39;m going to give you one of my secrets on debunking Zionists. Do you want to hear it? I read the same Zionist Israeli newspapers as you do. I know the messages Zionists are encouraged to convey. And the messages, no matter what subject they are based on, always are for the sole benefit of Israel, no matter how detrimental to others. And another secret it this: everything you, Anchorite, and DocWho says is a lie or a smokescreen. Anti-Semite, out!

[/QUOTE]It&#39;s interesting how you neglect to attach any importance or sinister machinations behind Jordan&#39;s support for the very same pipeline.[/ENDQUOTE] ... Doc, Doc, Doc. Once again, your speed-reading has you skipping important parts of the article. Israel stated it wanted to initiate talks with Jordan, but Jordan denied those talks would take place. Do you actually like being stupid?

Read, you dolt. The oil for Israel issue relates only to the issue of Kurdish independence and access to the oil from Kirkuk. And since when was the Christian Science Monitor a kook fringe website? The author of that article has been covering the Middle East for 30 years (see bottom). Man, it just GALLS you to see Zionists debunked on this board, doesn&#39;t it? Are you really trying to discredit the Christian Science Monitor, now? How desperate can you get?

A last post before bed. Once again brokedick attempts to infer meaning into statements which just isn&#39;t there. What the Jordanians said was that there are no plans for this because Jordan&#39;s "relations with Israel are now very cold." This does in no way shut the door on the option, but is rather a way to placate the recent rage of the Arab world at the suggestion, while leaving a door open if the Israelis decide to be more agreeable to Jordan&#39;s way of doing things. Jordan has historically had an interest in restoring the pipeline since the 1940s, and if the general situation in the region were more peaceful such talks could very well have been underway by now. Try again, brokedick, try harder.

[/QUOTE]My support for a free Kurdistan would be undiminished by the absence of the pipeline since that aspect of it is no more than a bonus rather than the actual reason for creating such a state. Israel will get its oil anyway, like it has so far.[/ENDQUOTE] ..... your feigned interest in Kurdish independence is, to say the very, very least, unconvincing. Back during the Gulf War, the Iraqi Kurds were called by Bush Sr. to stage an uprising against Saddam Hussein. When the war ended, and the US withdrew, Saddam quite literally hunted down the Kurds and slaughtered them. It wasn&#39;t until Clinton took office that the US established the northern no-fly zones to protect them. Now, Israel and the US are playing a more dangerous game with the Kurds, except the retribution will be many times worse than what Saddam could do. Because this time it will not only involve the Iraqi Kurds, but the huge populations of Kurds in southern Turkey and Northwestern Iraq. So, Pazuzu, screw you. Because you care nothing about the Kurds.

Jordan actually has an interest in restoring that line from Kirkuk to Haifa? Really? This oil-producing nation wants to help restore a line that delivers oil from another region to Israel? Can you even conceive a lie that is in the tiniest bit convincing? I don&#39;t have to &#39;try harder&#39;, Doc. It is too damned easy.

...those are the kind of posts one can expect from someone who says "Turkey and the EU my ass". Again, you completely ignore just how desperately Turkey wants to get into the EU. Your entire argument hinges upon a self-reliant, non-NATO Turkey with no desire to join the EU and with no fear of US power (economic or military), thus fearing nothing in terms of consequences if it decided to eradicate the Kurds. Usually, political gaffs like that would be rewarded with epithets like "you fucking idiot", but since you already know how your arguments are deliberately constructed, and for what ultimate purpose (the equating of the vast majority of the world&#39;s Jews with Nazis), I&#39;ll settle for "you fucking dime-store scumbag".

I think your mental fatigue is wearing you thin. Not to mention the debunking you&#39;ve gone through tonight. Get some rest, wake up refreshed, and you can come back with a less sophomoric comeback than you just did. Sweet dreams ...

I can&#39;t believe I came back here to catch up on this thread. Brokebackcowboy - what the hell, man? Are you trying to be an asshole? Because it&#39;s starting to look like you&#39;re using every trick in the "How To Create Circular Bullshit Argument So It Feels Like You Came Out On Top" handbook. Look, you may not like Israel. Even more, you may not like Americans who support Israel. It&#39;s become increasingly difficult to remember just what you really mean after all the spiteful taunts you&#39;ve thrown around in this discussion. But the fact of the matter is, Israel isn&#39;t going anywhere, anytime soon. (Unless all Hell REALLY breaks loose and we see something along the lines of the "Sampson Option".) They made their declaration and were welcomed into the UN long ago. Yet, I&#39;m finding it troubling that you continue to belittle every seemingly pro-Israel point brought up in this TB. You seem compelled to maliciously contest every fact, angle, and opinion. And it seems increasingly clear that you hold a decidedly anti-Israel view. However, I know that you&#39;ve also said that you have "nothing against Jews" and that you only have issues with Israel&#39;s current military action. If that&#39;s your mark, then so be it. Whatever. Yet when taking a closer look at your posts, this sentiment does not feel genuine. In fact, it feels quite the opposite. And it&#39;s this opposition-style sentiment that has become the lynchpin for every single one of your arguments and side-points. It goes beyond the token disapproval of the current military action. I can&#39;t but help feel that this originates from a conspiracy mindset. A mindset that refuses to acknowledge a contrasting opinion and claims to know the only "real facts" about a particular subject (i.e. 9/11, oil, Kurds, etc.). My point is this: it&#39;s getting old. You&#39;re not debunking or trouncing anybody. You&#39;ve got everyone, including yourself, going in circles. You seem like an intelligent dude, brokeback. But you&#39;re also very clever. I think it&#39;s time you ease up on the ol&#39; gun trigger and try to be a little bit more constructive. Savvy? Good. See you on the trail, cowboy.

... Israel disbanded the IDF, junked its nuclear weapons and declared to its neighbors that she would do anything to live in peace?
Israel would be annihilated, millions of its citizens killed. The term genocide could be used to describe the ensuing holocaust, but since that term has been so hopelessly debased by American academics, a new term would have to be created like super-duper-mega genocide to really capture the nature of things.

...is your simplistic view of war. The conflicts going on today are not some arbitrary "killing sport" that have no objectives or origins. The Islamic Jihadists have a "spiritual motive". The dynamic of the Islamist is what to him is a spiritual good superior to all material goods--that&#39;s why he can kill and die for it. To reduce his motives to material and political deprivation is to reinforce his analysis of Western corruption: that we are spiritually impoverished and cannot see beyond the comfort and pleasure of this world. THEY KNOW WHAT THEY&#39;RE FIGHTING FOR...do we? What is our motive? ANSWER: The belief that the principles driving our actions are in the end better for all people than those of the enemy, and that the triumph of those principles will create a better world for the greatest number of people. It MUST be shown to the Islamists that their analysis of our corruption is false: for all our prosperity and comfort we still know what the highest good for humans is--the freedom of the individual to choose for himself how, or even whether, to pursue the spiritual good.

Yo Dr. Who! You actually believe that shit you just typed? The only reason this country is over there, is to protect the monetary interest of a few wrinkly old white men who&#39;ve made their fortunes from oil. You need to take your ass to bed, because you&#39;re definitely sufferin&#39; from some major sleep deprivation.

Welcome back. Yours is a long post, so I&#39;ll reply point-by-point. I can see why you accuse me of circular arguments, but when discussing the Middle East, nothing - absolutely nothing - is ever face-value. I think you know this already, MNG. It is the hallmark of politics. Just like when Bush signs a "Healthy Skies Initiative" that in reality lowers pollution standards and opens up further deforestation. There are motives behind every action, motives that are not announced on CNN. You have to walk through the smokescreens to get to the truth. Like I said to DocPazuzu, I do read the Zionist Israeli newspapers (and the non-Zionist ones as well), the NeoConservative websites. It is there that they have no reservations about disclosing their agenda. And about those hidden motives - have you read Seymour Hersh&#39;s new article yesterday about the Lebanon War? Fascinating. When you tell me I may not like Israel, I&#39;m not quite certain how to respond to it. I don&#39;t have anything against the more pacifist Jews in Israel, and I stand by their cause to rein in their government&#39;s aggressive policies. But Israel has done so much harm, over so many years, don&#39;t expect me to embrace Israel. DocSpaz may choose to ignore it, but I have previously advocated the continued existence of Israel via a path of negotiation and an end to its brutal policy of &#39;transfer&#39;. And I don&#39;t not like Americans who support Israel. The difference between a Zionist and other Americans who support Israel, is that the Zionist places Israel&#39;s interest above all - above human rights, above America, above other races. You&#39;re right: Israel isn&#39;t going anywhere. But its policies and actions need to be condemned. It is the right and duty of all to speak up against brutality, and no amount of name-calling ("anti-semite") can stop me. Side note: I think it is ironic that people have said I deplete the meaning of the work Zionist, by just posting in two TBs. I think the word whose meaning has become completely depleted of its weight and meaning is "anti-Semite". I don&#39;t maliciously contest facts, angles and opinions. Malicious would describe some others here who insult and belittle others&#39; opinions. They know who they are. I determinedly contest others. I try to keep the insults to a minimum, but like I&#39;ve said before, sometimes you have to respond in kind. I think the reason why you feel I do have some sort of animosity against the Jews is unfounded. But I can understand why you feel that way. First of all, I have never placed any blame on Jews at large for Israel&#39;s actions. I have also pointed out that it is an unfortunate and tragic side-effect that Israel&#39;s actions do draw fire on Jews at large, and that I&#39;m not one to link the two. Because, and I think many people will refuse to see this, I do not equate Zionism with Judaism. And I do not equate Zionists with Jews. I think if the Zionists themselves (like Alan Dershowitz) stop making this correlation, then it would be a great benefit to Jews at large. But the goal of the Zionists is to attempt to quell criticism, and one of their methods is link their movement with Judaism. And that linkage is rejected even by many Jews. And deservedly so. One last thing: I don&#39;t think everything has a hidden Zionist motive. But this particular debate about the Kurds does have much to do with Israel. Ever since the US invasion, Israel has been on the ground in northern Iraq, training, advising and arming the Kurds. It is a dangerous position for the Kurdish people to be in. If not for creating an ally nation in the midst of northern Iraq and for access to Kirkuk&#39;s oil, what motive does Israel have to invest its resources in the Kurdish region? None. But neither goal is to the Kurds&#39; long-term benefit, because the result of those goals will be to draw aggression from the Turks and Iranians upon them. And the Kurds have suffered fucking enough. There are no circular arguments in this issue, MNG. It is a deadly serious one. I do hope to see you on the trail, indeed on friendlier terms. Maybe on the Snakes on a Plane trail? Good day, Gaius.

I know SR wasn&#39;t nearly as good as it should have been, but to me, I just like seeing Superman on the bigscreen. In any case, it would be a pretty difficult feat to outdo Donner&#39;s movie. If Donner, Mankiewicz and Stuart Baird ever teamed up to do the sequel, it would kick ass.

YB is right, returning here is akin to visiting a hoiday location in the off season- seen it all before and now it is somewhat stale. If there was any other news worthy of the name I would not have come back. Zionism has less than nothing to do with the kurdish issue. To say it does is a massive red herring. Israel may be training and arming the insurgents as you say (I am not well informed enough to debate this ) but that does not make Kurdistan a zionist issue. If ever there is a time for an independant Kurdish nation it is now, as there is no way in fuck Turkey would miss out on the EU gravy train (Which it could seriously do with getting on) by indulging in an ill advised invasion. This shit about oil is also a bit of a mystery to me. Isn&#39;t venezuala the 3rd biggest oil producer in the world? If the whole mess was purey about oil then why hasn&#39;t George W invaded there? I always wonder if people screaming "it&#39;s all about oil" isn&#39;t some kind of smokescreen designed to stifle debate. And Stalkerman Lifts was shit. Sorry all, that was dull, uninformed rubbish. Please enlighten me.

Sorry you find my debate with DocSpaz stale. In all honesty, it wasn&#39;t meant for your personal amusement anyway. Believe what you want about Israel&#39;s presence in the Kurdish region. The information is there for you to read, or not. We did not invade Venezuela, but please read up on the failed 2002 coup. It&#39;s fine if you don&#39;t like Superman Returns, I never said you had to like it.

I didn&#39;t mean the debate itself. There are still some of the most amusing insults. I meant the topic- neither side is ever going to give an inch, and this is what, the fifth(?) TB on WTC as well as the hundreds on United 93- No need to be snippy. You do seem to be missing (well at least not addressing)the point about Turkey&#39;s very real desperation to get into the EU- something that is by no means certain. I&#39;m off to read about the coup now.

One quick item: Please do not discount the oil factor. The world has reached peak oil production. One of the surest signs of this was years ago, when Exxon and Mobil, two giant competitors, merged. Now it has become clearer. Every nation is scrambling to secure oil supplies, and undoubtedly this will result in more conflicts - both overt and subversive. That failed Venezuelan coup was an example of a subversive conflict. Everyone needs to encourage their governments to pursue alternative fuel plans and policies. Personally, I don&#39;t want to be without power one day and can&#39;t pick on DocSpaz and Anchorite. That would suck.

I have just finished a bit of reading about the coup. It is absolutely not comparable to the middle east, as according to what I read it was wholly about oil and nothing else, whereas there are loads of complicated and tangled issues in the middle east. The point that I was trying to make about oil was that it seems to be the blanket cry of liberals when debating this issue, you yourself have done it with regards to the Kurds, whilst every other relevant factor is ignored- (EU membership, for example), and therefore, serves as a smokescreen to prevent discussion of the other issues. And SR was worse than a catnip hangover.

you know what I&#39;m going to do, i&#39;m going to track down an expert on all this shit and invite him into this debate. Now do I get a Zionist or an political observer. hmmmmmm. Can I first start by getting everyones qualifications here now? That might help me some.

Next thing y&#39;all gon&#39; be sayin&#39; is that The Jews walk on water and shit icecream. They got all those techno toys because of all that welfare money that the U.S. hands over for some god-only-knows reason.

When you use your psychic ability to read people&#39;s minds, in order to be able to tell them &#39;what they really mean to say&#39;, do you get nosebleeds? Personally, I liked what I wrote better than your interpretation. My sentence used an economy of words that flowed much better than yours, which reeked of the usual verbal diarrhea. I think you&#39;re more in your element when you&#39;re denigrating the whole of the Arab race and calling for their destruction. You sound more natural, more sincere. And I thank you for putting me in the company of Mel Gibson. The way I see it, in 100 years, the persecution of Mel Gibson would have made him the new Messiah, and all Gibsonians (Gibsonists? Melites?) will look upon me as one of his great disciples. And my posts on these AICN TBs will be my Gospel.

You&#39;ve got the story all wrong. Allah was the guy who got his farm razed, his children shot and his house bulldozed by Moses. Jesus tried to stop Moses, and begged him for mercy, but Moses bulldozed him too.

Did you see how those Israelis put that &#39;innovative high tech&#39; to use by making remote controlled doors on those sex slave dungeons? I&#39;ll bet the Arab traffickers aren&#39;t nearly as smart.

You&#39;re not the first person Anchorite&#39;s invited to &#39;pick up a book&#39;. You&#39;re about the 800th. But despite his recommendation of Mein Kampf, I suggest you read a similar book by another crazed madman: The Diary of Theodor Herzl. He&#39;s the father of modern Zionism. Hitler may have had evil designs on other races, but Herzl ... he had evil designs on his own. I can&#39;t say one is worse than the other, but one sure is higher on the lunatic scale.

I read about Ariel Sharon, too. He would have been saddened to hear that Israel lost this war. Only 791 dead Lebanese. Now Olmert is apologizing and taking responsibility for not doing more damage. I guess maybe they need Anchorite to join the fight. If his mother will let him leave the house, that is.

Check it out. About a half hour into that video, check out the interview with the guy whose wife let&#39;s him go to a prostitute for an hour a year. This way he can splurge and pay 400 shekels for a good quality sex slave, not the 120 shekels for the cheap ones. And did you get that the human trafficking industry is worth $1 billion a year? That&#39;s a lot of shekels.

that Egyptian Arabs and Israelis are working together in the sex slave trafficking industry. But maybe that just shows that there is hope for the Arabs and the Israelis to get along? Doesn&#39;t that bring a tear to your eye?

Now I know how this "prosperous Middle Eastern society" achieved such a vibrant economy. Selling human beings is more lucrative than selling oil. Did you know Israel was ranked #3 in the world in human trafficking? Give them a bronze medal, Doc.

methinks we need a new TB- page if not topic. BTW brokeback, the worst excesses of sex slavery in the west are from the Eastern Bloc in Europe, Israel is minor compared to the likes of the slavic gangs runnning underage kids into London

That sounds about right. Israel is completely miniscule on the globe. There&#39;s no way in hell there that kind of human trafficking goes thru there. These are the kind of outlandish things that keep me posting. I cant wait to see where those stats come from. It reveals Brokebacks complete and utter contempt for Israeli society. I&#39;m sure he believes the school books of Arab children which teach that the Jews drink the blood of Palestinian children.

In case someone read that last post of his on the subject and came away feeling that brokedick really sounds like an OK guy since he believes that, let me just point out that the terms he stated for accepting Israel&#39;s right to exist in the Harry WTC TB were 1) that the Palestinians (!) get to vote on Israel&#39;s right to exist, and 2) that Israel pay reparations and publically apologize for carrying out decades&#39; worth of "genocide" on the Palestinian people. In other words, brokedick could just as well have said: "I myself will go fight for Israel&#39;s right to exist... if all Israelis learn how to fly and grow a third arm out of their foreheads." Brokedick has been, and remains, a bargain basement anti-Semite, as shown by his ongoing efforts to equate the vast majority of the world&#39;s Jews with Nazis -- they latest aspect of which is making Herzl comparable to Hitler.

I think everyone that is still posting is aware of both sides stance . Also, does anyone know how this league table of evil that he quoted was put together? or who put it together in the first place? just curious, really

Don&#39;t know about brokedick, but zfisk/homewrecker totally believes the blood-drinking thing. He asked me once how much my gay Jewish masters in Hollywood and Tel Aviv paid me for basically being everybody else but him in the talkbacks, and I replied that I don&#39;t get paid in shekels, but in the "bottled blood of freshly killed Muslim and Christian children". Zfisk/homewrecker went completely apeshit after that and kept quoting it in other talkbacks as if it were true. He&#39;s a grade-A, homogenized, flaming fruitcake.

...I&#39;d like to see where brokedick learned of the "common" Israeli chant of "a hundred Arabs&#39; lives aren&#39;t worth one Jewish finger." And chants heard at right-wing fringe demonstrations in Israel don&#39;t count either, any more than chants heard at KKK or Aryan Brotherhood marches in the U.S. do.

Like I said, you sound highly disingenuous when you&#39;re being self-righteous. If you thought no one would take you to task for your racist, hate-filled diatraibe against the entire Arab race, you were sadly mistaken. Lost Prophet may back you up, but he has always shown a strong bias against Arabs anyway. You lost your precious high ground 3 TBs ago, and this TB is your poorest performance yet. Now tell me what I really meant to say.

arab, jew or otherwise. The only noticable bias I have shown is towards conspiracy theorists talking crap. Abu Hamza is an easily researchable figure. I did you the courtesy of looking up the coup yesterday, kindly do me the same today.

Hey, &#39;bro&#39;, if you bothered to Google for stats, you may make yourself a better debater. No problem, though - see below. Let&#39;s look at it this way. Israel is not the worse nation in the world, but it&#39;s far from that gleaming beacon of goodness, purity and freedom you&#39;re propagandizing it to be. If you bothered to watch that video, you would have seen the statistic cited in the news report itself. But don&#39;t let the facts get in the way of your smoke-blowing ... bro. http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=84429 [/QUOTE]One item undoubtedly discussed in private during Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice&#39;s visit on Monday to Israel was that the State Department may shortly rank Israel among the group of countries not taking action against human trafficking, which could result in the imposition of economic sanctions.
Since 2001 the U.S. State Department has published an annual report on international human trafficking, ranking countries by their willingness to eradicate it.
In the report&#39;s first edition Israel was ranked on the third and lowest tier, among such countries as Albania, Bahrain, Pakistan and Qatar that do not meet the minimum standards in the struggle against human trafficking and are not making any efforts to improve.
The report stated, "Israel is a destination country for trafficked persons, primarily women.
Women are trafficked to Israel from the New Independent States (specifically Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine), Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and some countries in Asia."
Since then Israel has moved up to the second tier.
Israeli officials fear that the forth edition of the report, published in June, will bounce Israel back to the third tier.
Justice Ministry attorney Miri Sasson told the Knesset committee on foreign workers, "Israel&#39;s position - that foreign workers are exploited but not to the extent of trafficking - was rejected by the Americans."
Washington bureaucrats point to the U.S. legal criteria that stipulate that a minimal standard for combating the phenomenon is harsh punishment.
While human trafficking in the United States carries a penalty of 16 years in jail, Israel&#39;s maximum penalty is one year.
Hoping to head off the rift, Knesset member Ran Cohen has asked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to appoint someone to coordinate the state&#39;s fight against human trafficking. [/ENDQUOTE] ... Now let&#39;s see you spin that.

I stand corrected. That coup, by the way, heavily involved oil, but the relationship between the US and Venezuela extends beyond that issue. It also has much to do with trade and US domination in the region.

I still maintain that it does not compare to the current mess in the Middle East, being as it was fundamentally about oil and little else, whereas the middle east is a whole mix of different problems- only one of which is oil.

Can you link to the TB where you had that &#39;blood drinking&#39; exchange with ZFisk? That&#39;s a pretty serious accusation you&#39;re making against him. And by the way, the first part of your citing my stance on Israel/Palestine was wrong. I didn&#39;t say the Palestinians had a right to vote on Israel&#39;s right to exist (although I&#39;m sure they wish they did). I said that Israel and the Palestinians need to negotiate a peace deal, and the results need to be ratified by a majority of the Palestinians. The second part was pretty much accurate.

No, you didn&#39;t say they had the "right" to vote on it, but you DID say that you&#39;d accept Israel&#39;s right to exist only if the Palestinians did. Your exact quote was: "Israel&#39;s right to exist must be acknowledged by the majority of the Palestinian people."

...but I do hope you know that answering questions meant for others is viewed as "proof" of a multi-username conspiracy by GingerTwit and zfisk/homewrecker. They just had a collective brain haemmorhage after seeing your post.

see what I did there- clever, eh? Now, can you answer either my question yesterday regarding Turkey&#39;s very obvious desperation to enter the EU precluding an invasion of Kurdistan, or the oil as a red herring point, or venture an opinion on one of the vile Islamic clerics (Abu Hamza) that are spouting a more virulent strain of hatred than the zionists you keep quoting.

Would be glad to except I have to get to work. But I&#39;ll say this though - oil is not a red herring, it is a resource many are dying over. If you believe that oil is a red herring issue, you&#39;re living in the early part of the 20th century. And I&#39;ve never defended any hate speech coming from the Arab side. My position always has been that fanatics are bad, no matter which side of the aisle they preach on.

I suspect deliberately, as you don&#39;t seem to be Ginger Twit level stupidity. The point is that when people scream "It&#39;s all about oil" it throws up a smokescreen that prevents discussion of the other issues- as I said when comparing venezuala to the current mess in the middle east. I was wondering why this is always the banner call when there are other issues that could be debated.

Here are my earlier remarks from Harry&#39;s review talkback:
As for the Herzl quote; I have again been unable to access any context and only see it cited in jewsagainstzionism and other fringe sites. However, I did find a good, objective article on Herzl at http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/journals/jss/jss5-3.html -- I&#39;ll quote from material relevent to Herzl&#39;s supposed "desire" for anti-semitism: "In his talks with [Tsarist minister] Plehve, Herzl transcended his personal feelings toward the minister (who was obviously not a friend of the Jews, though he maintained a diplomatic politesse throughout the interview), and together they agreed on the structural problems inherent in the existence of a large Jewish minority in the tsarist empire. Herzl reiterated his conviction that the status of the Jews in Russia posed a difficult dilemma for the Russian regime and might even in the end doom the very survival of tsarism. Plehve seemed to agree. On the one hand, he says, the government was ready to accept the Jews as equal subjects provided they integrate socially and linguistically into Russian society and get out of their communal and religious isolation. On the other hand, Plehve admitted that this would confront the government with another problem--the inundation of Russian gymnasiums and universities with Jewish students; it was this that led the authorities to impose a maximum quota on the number of Jewish students ("numerus clausus"). Otherwise, the Russian minister said, "we should soon run out of posts to give the Christians."52 But this, Herzl argued, pushes the Jews into revolutionary activity and causes further antisemitism as well as more government oppression. In a strange way, both agreed on the inherent dilemma, and Herzl rose to the occasion by not wasting time on condemning the antisemitic politics of the government (it would only elicit defensive responses) but challenging Plehve to suggest a way out. If Jews continued to feel discriminated against even if they joined the Russian cultural mainstream, then they would turn into revolutionaries and threaten the tsarist system; and if it would not be easy for them to emigrate because of the financial hardships involved and the beginning of anti-immigration laws (the British Aliens Law was passed at that time), then it should be in the interest of the Russian government to support a public effort at organized emigration--that is, Zionism. Herzl used similar arguments in previous talks with the Austrian prime minister von K

How about gettin&#39; off the sidelines and takin&#39; yo&#39; ass to Israel and join your brothers and sisters on the frontline instead of screamin&#39; oy vey & anti-semite in the safety of your basement in suburbia, USA.

I,m not an anti-semite, so spare me...I merely stepped in to douse you and Anchorite with some cold water because y&#39;all were 69nin&#39; each other with an erotic-like Jews is good/Arabs bad homo-luv&#39;. I did&#39;nt want y&#39;all to wake up in each others arms feelin&#39; all ashame & shit...Btw, you&#39;re welcome. I&#39;m here to help.

can be discounted as Hezbollah is using them as shields? I am probably misunderstanding badly, so please correct me, but if that is the case is it OK to kill 50 civilians to kill 1 terrorist? and btw conspiracy nuts- that is how you quote an outside source. Credible, Clear and absolutely not from any questionable source.

that that number should be taken with a grain of salt due to Hezbollah hiding within the civilian population. Still, taking that into account, there&#39;s no way that&#39;s not a huge gap and very high number of civilian deaths for a month&#39;s worth of violence.

A good link to a respectable site. I was expecting a conspiracy laced anti semetic tiatribe. Good info, and interesting posts in the comment sections as well. As I&#39;ve said repeatedly, I&#39;m about truth and clarity, regardless how sad it may be. I have no delusions about the dark side of human nature. I doubt that you ever cast the same discerning eye upon the lot that you so actively side with.

Here i be tryin&#39; to throw out the olive branch of racial harmony and tolerance by introducin&#39; y&#39;all to an epicurean delicacy and you be makin&#39; light of my "CULTURAL LETHARGY & BAD BEHAVIOR", that wuz brought up by an astute racially enlightened gentleman by the name of Anchorite (aka The last bastion of racial tolerance and equality) on said Ironman talkback. Btw, i&#39;m a flour & lemon pepper brotha myself. Shalom!

And i&#39;m not a huge fan of Al or Jesse. I&#39;m of the opinion that both need to just fade away. Louis on the other hand does preach self-empowerment and economic independance (recycling black dollars)...But i can understand your dislike of Mr. Farrakhan, due to his anti-semitic rhetoric...So in closing, i&#39;ll throw down my guns and let you and your like-minded brethren continue your fight with Brokeback and will come back periodically to observe the carnage.

Maybe Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell aren&#39;t respected in the black community because they have betrayed all traditional values held by African-Americans at the White House. And their blind allegiance to Bush, without any regard for the welfare of the American people, has been atrocious. On the subject of fried pork chops ... sounds delicious. Put me in for 2 seats at your grand opening, Glodene.

and out of genuine concern to better the lot of his people. I admire him for that, and I agreed with much of what he said. Minister Farrakhan has toned down his fiery rhetoric, but I seem to have taken on his mantle.

I&#39;m glad you and DocWho read up on human trafficking and sexual slavery in Israel. You both showed impartiality in your replies, for which is appreciated. Your last post shows you&#39;re open-minded and not blind to injustice, even in Israel. And that was my goal - not to belittle Israel or its people, but to show that Israel is far from the unassailably pure and good society you and DocWho posited it to be against the backdrop of primitive and savage Arab nations. Israeli society, in addition to its government&#39;s corrupt policies domestically and abroad, is rife with all sorts of criminal behavior: from the drug trade, money laundering, human trafficking, sexual slavery, and weapons trafficking. By not viewing Israelis as any better than Arabs, we can then begin to see a resolution through, one based on equality. Only when Israelis view the Arabs (and vice versa) as equals, can progress be made.

Anchorite, I think the politcal will to end human trafficking is not there for myriad reasons. One is that Israel collects taxes on the trade. That is abominable blood money. Another reason is that slaves in Israel is like illegal immigrants in the US but to the 1,000th degree. Israel is relying on trafficked humans for slave labor, and the sex slave industry is ridiculously profitable. That video I cited contained an interview with a man who has a wife and daughter. To him, buying a sex slave was just simply a good investment. He made his money back in 2.5 months, and the rest is pure profit. Hello? Is this not fucking crazy? And the cops and government officials who were interviewed were completely careless. They were only pushed reluctantly to action because Israel was going to lose economic aid from the US. There needs to be a moral call from Israeli society to put an end to this disgusting practice. But this is of course a world-wide issue as well, and everyone needs to put a stop to it everywhere.

Couldn&#39;t post from work today but I noticed an earlier post you mentioned "Israel not being perfect". Isn&#39;t it funny that such a thing must be said about America or Israel before defending it&#39;s virtues? In Iran, they recently celebrated the anniversary of the public hanging of a 16 yr old girl for having pre-marital sex. Now, this is not some underground, netherworld,blackmarket operation like human trafficking...This is the govt. in action in broad daylight-it&#39;s their society&#39;s values on full display! Hmmmm...Where would I rather live?

It&#39;s a testament to my board prowess that I can elicit such an emotional response as having my nickname sullied like that. I just wished it were a little more clever. Like BrokebackCumboy, or Brokebackcocktoy, or something like that.

like Anchorite. Ah well. I live in NYC, maybe soon to move to Williamsburg. Have never been to New Paltz but from what I heard between you and, I believe Yackbacker, it&#39;s a strange town. But what the hell, people everywhere are whack. Except parts of Canada ... strangely normal.

Regarding Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell, I believe the strong resentment of them by the black community is multi-fold in scope. (Glodene, if I appear inaccurate in my views here, please chime in) Most African-Americans view the invasion of Iraq, based on false premises, to be an example of American/European hegemony on a defenseless people over a valuable natural resource: oil. Saddam was like various dictators in Africa. He was useful when he was cooperative in keeping the resource flowing cheaply and accessible to western markets, but was cut down when he got too big for his britches (is that how that is spelled?). Western powers have always exploited African nations in much the same way for their wealth of resources. Jesse Jackson, despite his grandstanding ways, tried hard to avert the invasion of Iraq. He is to be admired for his attempt. Condoleeza Rice is well known by all for her long-standing ties in the oil industry. And Colin Powell, an accomplished general, pissed his whole legacy away because he got steamrolled by Rumsfeld and the other NeoCon hawks, and was tricked into that infamous UN address. Insiders and confidantes of his said that he remained a &#39;good soldier&#39;, always loyal to Bush no matter the cost to himself. This unfortunately translated to being a bad citizen, because his loyalty blinded him from the truth - which was that the invasion was ill-advised and needlessly dangerous to the military. I believe that a lot of resentment from the black community came because there is a larger percentage of blacks and hispanics in the military than is proportionate to their representation in the nation&#39;s population. For a man in such an elevated position in government, as Secretary of State and a former top military leader, Colin&#39;s actual influence was greatly diminished. That is why he was seen as a willing token in the administration and not an equal participant. Not to mention that the Bush Administration has been the most black-unfriendly administration in God knows how long (I can&#39;t get into the details now, but feel free to research that). I think the gap between the US and Israel as far as democratic ideals is a wide one indeed. You are accurate to say that Israel&#39;s military state has much to do with it. Israel is very much an apartheid state, and for it to claim to be a democracy, I don&#39;t see it happening for many of the reasons you cited. Not until the Palestinian question is resolved, and when it strives to be more than just a "Jewish" state. For it to be a true democracy, it should at least grant its Arab citizens equal status under the law, and enforce those laws. I believe Israel should develop an "Israeli" identity instead of a religious-based "Jewish" identity. This way, a more secular Israel can rise above the relio-dominant Muslim countries that live under Sharia law. I&#39;m not religious in any way, and I respect all religious beliefs. But I prefer a clear separation of church and state, and I support true democracy - equality of all under the law. This goes for Arab nations as well. I don&#39;t like religious fundamentalists running anything, much less a country. Why I said early on in Harry&#39;s TB that Israel needs to stop its aggression against the Palestinians is because to do so, to negotiate with them on fair terms, and to establish a viable Palestinian state, is to take away the Arab world&#39;s most powerful reason to hate Israel. Imagine the PR and support Israel would get if it changed its tact with the Palestinians. Now one can argue that the Arabs would hate Israel no matter what happens with the Palestinians. Who really knows, but one approach has been tried and failed. Cannot the other approach be tried? I totally agree with your assessment that the cessation of external pressures and threats from Arab countries would go a long way towards helping the peace process. I just don&#39;t think that the NeoCon Zionist influence on the US and Israel&#39;s foreign policies are going to bring that about. There are great thinkers in both Israel and the Arab countries - liberal and secular historians and political thinkers who probably should be given the chance to shape the Middle East for the betterment of all. I hope they get their chance when one day people just get tired of the endless bloodshed. Anyway, I hope your dinner came out good.

Thank you for that link. Not so much for the Chomsky vid, but they&#39;ve got an entertaining balls-to-the-wall board fight all their own. Great stuff! I love this line someone wrote: "The only thing you own is ignorance". Hah! I&#39;ve got to use that one. Where&#39;s Pazuzu?

A group of stars and directors came together in an ad to condemn Hezbollah and it&#39;s aggresion against Israel. It includes Danny DeVito, Michael Douglas, Dennis Hopper, Sly Stallone, Bruce Willis, James Woods, William Hurt, Ridley Scott, Micahel Mann, Sam Raimi etc.Very cool. Hollywood is usually pretty monolithic in it&#39;s politics. Here we see the decent stepping foward. I dig this!

For those who watched it ... how did they get around shooting guns in a plane? What about puncturing the cabin and depressurizing the plane? Was it a special plane? Were they special guns? I refuse to spend money on a film until I know they have covered every possible plothole.

It is what it is. The Dixie Chicks whine about Bush and it&#39;s splattered all over the media. Some celebs come out with a statement like this (to the great chagrin of most of Hollywood) and it&#39;s a yawnfest. Lame